With 261 provisional ballots left to be counted Friday, Plymouth Councilman Greg Baldwin was eking out a narrow lead over businesswoman Maria Nunez and former Jackson Councilwoman Marilyn Lewis was extending her lead over incumbent Al Nunes.

In an historic election that featured wholesale overhauls for the Jackson City Council and Amador Water Agency Board of Directors, and new blood for city councils in Ione and Sutter Creek and on the county's school board, at least two contests remained too close to call.

Baldwin had been trailing Nunez by two votes prior to the updated count, and was now leading by four in a contest some saw as between an anti-casino slate of incumbents and their pro-casino challengers. Nunez, the only one of the three challengers who wasn't a formerly recalled council member, rejected that perception, running on a platform of bringing openness and dialogue to the council.

Baldwin, who stopped campaigning late in the race due to personal family tragedies, said last week he would be fine whichever way the results went.

In Jackson, Lewis was outpacing her former colleague Nunes by 17 votes as of Friday, up from six just one day before.

Appointed incumbent Wayne Garibaldi and former Councilman Keith Sweet will serve next year with newly appointed Councilman Pat Crew, a Jackson business owner taking over for Andy Rodriguez, Vice Mayor Connie Gonsalves, and either Lewis or Nunes.

When it came to the dozen statewide initiatives on last week's ballot, Amador County voters were slightly less willing than the rest of California to support some expensive bond measures - though they did back one for veterans' housing - and even more willing to vote in favor of a same-sex marriage ban, with nearly two-thirds of Amador voters supporting Proposition 8.

A majority of Amador voters supported half of the 12 propositions, compared to the state's passage of seven. They overwhelmingly rejected propositions calling for bond money to pay for more children's hospitals, drug rehabilitation programs and renewable energy, as well as initiatives requesting money to fight gangs and one shifting resources to natural gas.

Unlike 2005, county voters went with the state in rejecting a parental notification ballot measure for minors seeking abortions.