A tight race for the final spot on November’s general election ballot has three incumbent school board members and two newcomers leading the way in Lehighton Area School District based on unofficial results Tuesday night.

Six candidates battled for five available four-year terms with Zac Hunter and Sean Gleaves joining incumbents Heather Neff, April Walker and Jeremy Glaush as the top vote getters on both the Republican and Democrat tickets.

On the Republican ticket, Neff lead the way with 1,094 votes followed by Walker with 1,030, Hunter with 816, Glaush with 806 and Gleaves with 777. Falling just short was Walter Zlomsowitch, who only ran on the Republican ticket and tallied 746 votes. There were 220 Republican write-in votes that will be tallied later this week.

On the Democrat ticket, Neff garnered 623 votes, followed by Walker with 569, Hunter with 526, Gleaves with 477 and Glaush with 474. There were 188 write-in votes cast by Democrats.

Incumbent Richard Beltz appears to have won a two-year term, tallying 637 votes from Democrats and 868 votes from Republicans. His only challenger was Zlomsowitch on the Republican side, who fell short with 565 votes.

See Wednesday’s Times News for full election coverage and results.