PORT TOWNSEND — A countywide proposal to raise the sales tax by 0.3 percent to benefit budget-strapped Jefferson Transit Authority and avoid bus service cuts was handily passing after the first ballots were counted Tuesday night.

Jefferson Transit Authority Proposition 1 was passing by 6,443 votes or 55.95 percent in favor, and 5,073 votes or 44.05 percent against, after the first count of ballots after 8 p.m. Election Day at the Jefferson County Auditor’s Office in the courthouse.

Total ballots returned by 8 p.m. Tuesday were 11,581, or 53.36 percent of the 21,704 ballots mailed out to county voters in mid-January.

Those ballots, plus ballots received in the coming days with a postmark of Tuesday or before, are expected to be counted on at noon Friday at her courthouse office, County Auditor Donna Eldridge said.

Eldridge said about 350 ballots were in hand, but not counted Tuesday night, including those collected from the ballot drop box behind the county courthouse at 8 p.m.

Eldridge has predicted a 57 percent voter turnout for the special elections, which will be certified on Feb. 23.

A cheerful Transit board chairwoman Catharine Robinson, who is a Port Townsend city councilwoman, said she was “very happy” with the early voter showing at the courthouse Tuesday night after the first mail ballots were counted.

“I’m relieved because we will not have to cut service, and we won’t have to lay anybody off,” Robinson said at the courthouse Tuesday night.

The support throughout the county was “very gratifying,” she said.

George Randels, Port Townsend deputy mayor and the other city representative on the Transit Board, was also encouraged by the results Tuesday night at the courthouse.

“It’s great news, I believe, for the county,” Randels said. “We will be able to maintain and maybe expand service, and that’s what’s needed for the people and for the environment.”

The proposed increase to 9 percent would raise 3 cents on each $10 purchase or 30 cents on each $100 — about $1.1 million needed to maintain services, including on Sundays, officials said.

In November, voters approved an increase of Jefferson County’s tax rate to 8.7 percent, voting on a measure placed on the ballot by the county commissioners.

Passage of the county’s measure made Jefferson County’s sales tax the highest on the North Olympic Peninsula. The sales tax rate in the city of Sequim is 8.6 percent. In the rest of Clallam County, it is 8.4 percent.

The Jefferson Transit board — made up of the three county commissioners and two Port Townsend City Council members — placed the sales tax measure on the ballot, saying that the anticipated $1.1 million it would bring in annually, beginning in September, would allow the public bus agency to maintain existing services.

Transit Executive Director Peggy Hanson has said if the sales tax measure failed, up to six bus drivers would be laid off, both weekend bus service and Dial-A-Ride would be cut and weekday schedules would at times result in rider bus-stop waits of an hour or more.

The loss of this service would have a significant impact on the working poor, Olympic Community Action Programs Executive Director Tim Hockett has said.

Critics of the proposal have challenged the 355,000 yearly ridership numbers presented by Jefferson Transit.

Jefferson Transit board members has already planned for service cutbacks while hoping that voters approve a measure that will make them unnecessary.

The board approved a 2011 budget Dec. 28 that did not include projections of revenue from the proposed tax increase.

That meant decreasing public bus operation from 450 to 350 hours per week, resulting in cutting back routes and eliminating Sunday service, Hanson said.

Transit board members late last year approved operating and capital fund budgets of about $5.1 million that will mean layoffs and service cuts.

The transit board of Jefferson County’s three commissioners and two Port Townsend City Council members unanimously passed the 2011 budget — about $300,000 less than the 2010 figure.

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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.