The gap separating the “yes” votes from the “no” votes whether to annex the City of Renton to the King County Library System narrowed Friday to just 46 votes.

After the initial returns released Tuesday night, the gap was 278 votes, but with each new tally it has shrunk.

The results released Friday show that 6,339 voters favor annexing to KCLS, to 6,293 opposed. In percentage terms, the difference is 50.18 percent to 49.82 percent.

The Friday figures represent about 31 percent of nearly 41,000 registered voters in the city. That figure likely will come close to the final turnout of Renton voters in the Tuesday’s special election.

As of Friday, it appeared the county had tallied roughly all the ballots it had received from Renton voters by Thursday night.

Elections officials estimated there were about 1,700 mail-in ballots from across the county still to count, not including those still in the mail. Envelopes containing the ballots had to be postmarked no later than Tuesday.

Based on information from the county Elections Division, the Renton Reporter reported earlier the possibility of an automatic recount if the vote gap met certain thresholds.

However, since then an elections spokeswoman has said those thresholds apply only to races with candidates, not to ballot measures. With ballot measures, there is no automatic recount.

Since the City of Renton placed the annexation on the ballot, it would have to decide whether to pay for a recount of the vote, according to spokeswoman Megan Coppersmith.

The cost is 25 cents per ballot for a manual recount or 15 cents for a machine recount. There are additional costs as well, she said.

Renton would have to decide whether to pay for a recount within three working days after the election is certified, which is Feb. 24.

The next results will be posted online late Monday afternoon.