UPDATE AT 1:45 A.M. (WZZM) -- Rep. Roy Schmidt, who asked for forgiveness from his constituents for his attempt to rig his re-election, won a back-and-forth primary battle over write-in challenger Bing Goei in the 76th District State House GOP Primary.

As of 1:45 a.m. Wednesday, Schmidt has 52% of the votes tallied to 48% for Goei.

Goei told our partner, the Detroit Free Press, that Schmidt pulled ahead in the race once absentee ballots were counted.

Schmidt will now face first-time Democratic candidate Winnie Brinks, who succeeded in her own wrote-in campaign to be her party's nominee.  She needed 1,500 write-in votes to make the fall ballot, and received 3,508 as of 12:20 a.m.

UPDATE AT 12:59 A.M. (WZZM) -- Incumbent Rep. Roy Schmidt has regained the lead in his race against write-in challenger Bing Goei in the 76th District State House GOP Primary.

With 100% of precincts reporting -- and the counting of absentee ballots underway -- Schmidt has 3,299 votes (52%) and Goei has 3,033 votes (48%).

UPDATE AT 12:19 A.M. (WZZM) -- With 100% of Grand Rapids' precincts reporting, write-in challenger Bing Goei has an 11-vote lead over incumbent Rep. Roy Schmidt in the 76th District State House GOP primary.

As of 12:19 a.m., Goei had 2,958 votes and Schmidt had 2,947 votes.

Grand Rapids city clerk Lauri Parks says all of Tuesday's votes have been counted, so her staff is now switching to counting absentee ballots.

UPDATE AT 12:00 A.M. (WZZM) -- The race between incumbent Rep. Roy Schmidt and write-in challenger Bing Goei has tightened as more votes are tallied.

As of midnight, Schmidt and Goei were tied, with each having 50% of the vote. 

One more Grand Rapids precinct is expected to report.

UPDATE: 11:25 p.m.

With 54% of precincts reporting, Goei has a lead on Schmidt with Goei receiving 61% of the vote to Schmidt's 39%.

GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) - Representative Roy Schmidt (R) Grand Rapids, said Tuesday night said this campaign for office has been extremely difficult for his family but "again I have no one to blame but myself again, I have a great wife and I sincerely apologized to her as I did the public but that's not gonna take away my 20 years of continuing to serve this city of Grand Rapids and hopefully if reelected Ill be able to do that."

Schmidt switched parties at the last possible second, from democrat to republican. He tried but failed to recruit an unknown candidate to run as a democrat to prevent the party from fielding a strong competitor.

The controversy prompted write-in efforts to challenge Schmidt. One, from republican Bing Goei, who on Tuesday night said "Maybe we will pull off a miracle tonight...I'm confident they'll express their displeasure with what Roy has done at the voting booth." 

The other write-in effort comes from democrat Winnie Brinks, who greeted volunteers Tuesday night at a Grand Rapids restaurant. "So far it's been really great people have been so supportive ... it's just been very gratifying very affirming that I made the right decision to go for this."

Results in this race were not expected until very late into the night because of the large number of write in votes that require manual tabulation.