Wake elections officials counted ballots in the Cary Town Council District B race Thursday. When they were done, auto shop owner Don Frantz had a tenuous lead of 28 votes -- 1,390 to 1,362 over Vickie Maxwell, a homemaker and community activist. There are still at least 35 and as many as 52 provisional ballots to count.

The candidates were the top two vote-getters in the election Tuesday. Under the instant runoff rules, the winner will be determined by the second choice of the more than 500 voters who picked the third-place finisher, incumbent Nels Roseland.

The election won't be final until Tuesday, when the Wake Board of Elections will add provisional ballots to the tally and declare official results. Maxwell, 50, could still win if she receives an healthy majority of the valid provisional ballots.

"I feel like I owe it to my voters and supporters to hang in there until the end," Maxwell said Thursday.

Maxwell and Frantz hugged and congratulated each other on good campaigns after watching officials count the instant-runoff ballots at the elections board office in Raleigh.

Frantz, 36, owns Frantz Automotive Center in downtown Cary.

"I'm ready to get to work and help move Cary in a positive direction," he said Thursday.

The election result won't likely have a great impact on Cary's growth policies because both Frantz and Maxwell both have called for better growth management. Also, Cary voters elected three other slow-growth candidates to the town's seven-member council.

"Growth is healthy," Frantz said. "My issue is with the type of growth we've been seeing, especially high-density, mixed-use developments. We need to refocus Cary on the kind of development that made it the great place that it is: quality single-family construction on appropriately sized lots. I like suburban."

Of Roseland's 791 voters, 549 picked one of the other two as a second choice. More of them favored Maxwell next -- 301 versus 248.

Cary and Hendersonville agreed this year to test the state's instant-runoff procedure. By letting voters mark their second and third choices on election day, it avoids the time and expense of conducting -- and campaigning for -- a separate runoff election in which turnout would drop off.

The experiment seems to have worked well technically, though the wisdom of the policy could remain a subject of debate.

Despite his lead, Frantz said he doesn't like the new procedure.

"I would rather have had a real runoff," he said. "This is the most nerve-wracking experience of my life. And in reality, some people got two votes. I have a fundamental problem with that."

A traditional runoff election, too, results in some people voting twice, just at different times.

Maxwell said she favors instant runoffs.

"I think it's fine," she said. "It saves the county money. And I don't have to raise more money and campaign for 30 more days."

Wake's elections director, Cherie Poucher, said the instant-runoff balloting went well and was easier to perform than to explain.

"I'm very happy with it," she said. "And there's a couple of candidates who won't have to spend the next month campaigning."

If she doesn't win the council seat, Maxwell isn't entirely out of politics.

She is running for president of her neighborhood homeowners association Nov. 4. And this time she is unopposed.

If she loses the council race, Maxwell said, she would have to think about running again.

"It's sort of like having a baby," she said. "I'm going to have to think about it before I do it again. Right now, I think I'll go home to my three cats and take a nap."