Residents turn out in droves for early voting

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Voters have continued to flock to the county’s early voting sites in such large numbers that the county has had to call in help.

County Manager Tom Trujillo said the county election office has had to solicit help from employees for other departments to step in to fill the void. People like Bill Nechero, the city councilor who works for the county probation office, was asked to donate a couple of hours on Thursday to help with the work.

Trujillo said the requests for help will continue on Friday and again on Tuesday during election day because the county is expecting big crowds on both days.

He said the county would rather ask for county employees to come in and volunteer time than to pay for overtime for election staff or hire new personnel.

“By the time we hire them and train them, the election will be over,” Trujillo said.

It was obvious that help was needed as the number of early voters seems to be increasing the closer it comes to election day.

Among those who came in Thursday was Gallup resident Cheryl Meadows who said she had been meaning to come by before but did not make it until Thursday.

She had been hearing all of the media reports about possibly record turnouts on election day and decided it may be wise to go in and get it done early to avoid the big lines that a lot of people expect on Tuesday.

“It only took me about 15 minutes,” she said.

As of early Thursday, the number of early voters who have come into the county courthouse stood at 4,688 and Rick Palochak, the county’s election chief, was expecting 200-300 more both on Thursday and Friday.

Added to that were the 300 or so who have voted in Zuni so far and another 269 in the Thoreau suboffice.
With the election office already surpassing 5,000 total early voters, Palochak said the final numbers may surpass 6,000.

All three county election offices — in the courthouse, in Zuni and Thoreau — will be open on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

So if so many people are voting early, does this mean that election day should be less hectic?

Probably not, said Palochak, pointing out that the early voters are coming mainly from in and around Gallup and many voters in the more remote areas of the county are waiting until Tuesday to vote.

“I’m expecting a big turnout countywide Tuesday,” he said.