Recounts of votes from Saturday’s closest primary races kept Republican state Rep. Kanani Souza ahead of her opponent Sheila Medeiros by a single vote, and GOP stalwart Bob McDermott has maintained his lead over state Sen. Kurt Fevella in another close race.

But dozens of voters have two more days to address problems with their mail-in ballots, and results won’t be final until about 7 p.m. Friday, according to Chief Election Officer Scott Nago.

The recount completed shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday confirmed Souza received 841 votes in the GOP primary to Medeiros’ 840 in the closest contest of the year. There is no opposition in the general election for the House seat representing Kapolei and Makakilo so whoever ultimately prevails will win the seat outright.

Nago said the recount, which is required under state election law, did not change the vote counts. However, there are still about 85 ballots for the Fevella-McDermott Senate race and 30 for the Souza-Medeiros House contest that are pending confirmation from the voters.

“It’s just that they didn’t have a signature, or their signature didn’t match, and now they can fix that for it to be counted,” Nago said. Those voters have until 4:30 p.m. Friday to fix those problems, and the final count will follow.

At the moment Souza’s race is believed to be the closest election contest ever apart from the 1988 Democratic state House primary between Romy Cachola and Connie Chun, he said, which tied at 1,795 votes each. That race was finally resolved with a runoff in the general election that year.

“I don’t think there has ever been a one-vote difference,” Nago said.

McDermott, a former state representative, was ahead of Fevella 1,211 votes to 1,204 in the Republican primary. If it holds, McDermott will go on to face Democrat Markus Owens in the general election on Nov. 3.

Fevella has served in the Senate for almost eight years. McDermott served in the state House for 16 years and was a supporter of Fevella’s until the two had a personal falling out, McDermott said.

McDermott said he was surprised at the turnout of more than 2,700 voters in the Republican primary this year, which was far more vote than were cast in previous Republican primaries in that district. He was also startled by how close the race turned out to be.

“We haven’t had competition before,” he said. Hawaiʻi Republicans often struggle to field candidates for legislative races, he said, but “the good news is we finally got to the point where we were actually having some competition.”

In other election news, Hawaiʻi Republican Party officials announced Wednesday they chose tourism executive Kelly Kitashima to run in a special election on Nov. 3 to decide who will represent Senate District 18. That district includes Mililani Town, Waipi‘o Gentry, Crestview and Waikele.

State Sen. Michelle Kidani, an 18-year veteran of the Senate, resigned from that Senate seat in June indicating she could no longer meet the responsibilities of the office. Her resignation came after this year’s deadline to file to run for office and triggered the special election. Each political party will select candidates for that race.

Kitashima has more than 24 years of leadership experience in Hawaiʻi’s hospitality and tourism industries, with a background in resort operations, sales, marketing, community relations, acquisitions and business development, according to a written announcement from the Republican Party.

Gov. Josh Green appointed Democrat Danielle Bass to temporarily replace Kidani, and Bass is expected to be a frontrunner when the Democrats pick their candidate for the special election on Aug. 22.

The Green and Libertarian parties also will field a candidate and a nonpartisan candidate will be chosen by lottery.