Papantos builds on slim lead over Vito in Wheeling board race

Mary Papantos has picked up a few votes to expand her slim lead over write-in candidate Joe Vito in the race for the last seat on Wheeling's village board.

Papantos now has 877 votes over Vito's 852, unofficial results show. Five mail-in ballots trickled into the Cook County Clerk's Office this week, two of which went to Papantos and one to Vito, a spokeswoman said.

The results in the nailbiter will be updated Friday and again, for the last time, Tuesday. But the decision could get tangled up in court with Vito challenging 33 votes for him that weren't counted.

In those cases, voters wrote his name but didn't fill in a corresponding arrow on the ballot. Vito says he's prepared to file a lawsuit against the clerk's office demanding that it count the 33 votes after the tallies are certified by the end of the month. Doing so would give him an 8-vote lead over Papantos.