McKinley County election runs smoothly
Two-year-old Kayla Howe eats a lollipop while her aunt, Shannon Wilson fills out her ballot at Twin Lakes Elementary School Tuesday , October 4. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Cable Hoover

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Almost two out of every three registered voters came out to vote in this year’s presidential election but there were really no surprises — Democrats won everything.

The only two contested local races — the state rep race for District 6 and the State Senate race for District 4 — resulted in easy victories for Sandra Jeff, a former administrator for Lynda Lovejoy, and George K. Muñoz, son of the late Gallup mayor Eddie Muñoz.

McKinley County voters, especially those on the Navajo Reservation, also went heavily for Barack Obama for U.S. president by a better than 3 to 1 margin. Tom Udall got almost a 4-1 majority in his race for the U.S. Senate, and Harry Teague almost did as well in his bid for U.S. Representative for District 2.

In another local race, Eliseo Lee Alcon easily defeated R. Grant Clawson by a 2-1 vote for State Rep. District 6.
All three of the district court judges in McKinley County — Grant Foutz, Louis DePauli Jr. and Robert Aragon — received approval by voters for retention but none of them got more than a 78 percent approval rating, and Aragon saw his dip to 72 percent.

As for the constitutional amendment proposals, all of them got county voter support except for number 2 which lost by a 2-1 margin. All of the bond questions received heavy support as well.

A total of 22,434 voters in the county went to the polls this year with 14,370 showing up on Tuesday.

While this was good, the polls were not quite as busy as some county officials expected.

While polling places were busy, most did not see the lines that were reported in the news media in other areas, where people had to stand in lines for two hours or more to vote.

Most voters here appeared to be able to vote in anywhere from a few minute to less than 30 minutes at peak times.

“We were slow getting started at some of the polling sites,” he said, adding that in a few sites, poll judges were late in getting to the polls but by 7 a.m. everything was going smoothly. He also reported a couple of machine problems but these were corrected swiftly and voters were given emergency ballots to fills out.

Only a few people showed up at the county courthouse to get the results but within an hour it was apparent that it would be a Democratic sweep and the rotunda cleared out. All of the precincts had their votes in by 10:40 p.m., which may be a first for the county.

The election office will now be sorting through some 2,000 provisional ballots that were filled out because poll officials could not find the person’s name on their registration list. None of this, however, will change the outcomes of any of the races.