The brightest spotlight in the school board races is on the new Jordan districts. And with more than 70 candidates for the new boards and no primary election, officials say every vote is going to count.

More than 30 candidates filed to run for the seven spots available in the Jordan-east district while nearly 40 have filed for the Jordan-west district.

East-side voters in November decided to secede from the state's largest school district, creating a Jordan-east district and a new Jordan-west district.

But rules of that transition, however, have come into question, and recent legislation aims to clear things up that includes a provision aimed at letting current Jordan Board of Education members keep their seats when the district splits. The idea was to keep institutional knowledge in the transition.

But the bill's intended duration of current members' terms on the new board are unclear — for instance, will some be serving five years or more, when they were elected to four-year terms? — because of election language in the current statute.

Currently the Salt Lake County Clerk's Office is working all that out. Clerk Sherrie Swensen said she urged all school board hopefuls to file. Then later if the slot they filed to run for is found not to be available then the clerks office will refund their money.

While historically school board candidates are weeded out during a primary, under these circumstances the special election June 24 will set the board members.

Swensen said that means that literally every vote counts.

"It will be all about who is able to get their supporters out there to vote," she said.

In Davis School District there are a few more races than normal, something that some predicted ever since the highly controversial high school realignment project that resulted in a lawsuit. Kirk Kasparian, a Bountiful resident was one of the names listed on the lawsuit last year.

More than three candidates are in every race but one for the State Board of Education. Under the law that means the governor will be selecting two candidates in each race for the ballot.

Included in those races is former South Weber City Councilman Dave Thomas, a former senator, who was elected to the council in November, and is running to represent Davis and Weber Counties in District 4 against former Davis Chamber of Commerce CEO Chris Dallin and the incumbent, Richard Sadler, of South Ogden.

Also of note: Erin Allen Madsen, the wife of Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Lehi, and a home-schooling advocate, is running along with four other candidates for the District 12 seat.

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E-mail: terickson@desnews.com