C-6 THE NEW MEXICAN Friday, July 4, 2008

Recount shows state senator wins race by only five votes

By Barry Massey June 3 primary showed Ulibarri the November general election. printout of results. received 915 votes, which was that’s the main thing,” said Uli-
The Associated Press winning a three-way race for The recount was done in The new printout showed down two from previously can- barri, who is the Cibola County
the Democratic nomination by the three counties by feeding no disparity from Election Day vassed results. June Lorenzo got manager.
Unofficial returns of a recount eight votes. ballots from the primary elec- results for those two precincts, 836 votes, up from 835 in the After polls close on Election
in a state Senate race show the That margin dropped to five tion back through tabulators according to Trujillo. The over- initial canvassed results. Day, ballots are to be transferred
incumbent, David Ulibarri of votes, according to unofficial and then hand tallying certain all recount results in Cibola Recounts in Socorro and from a tabulator’s storage bin
Grants, winning the Democratic results of the recount in the other ballots. For the two Cibola County showed a slight change, Valencia county showed no to a separate ballot box that is
nomination by five votes. three counties. The outcome County precincts without bal- however. change from previously can- then locked and delivered to the
However, the candidate who of the race will not be official lots, the results were rechecked According to unofficial vassed results. county clerk. The ballots from
finished second in the race until the state Canvassing Board with memory cards from the recount returns, Sanchez car- Ulibarri said he is satisfied two precincts — both in Grants
wants an investigation into pri- meets July 11 to certify results. tabulators used at polling places ried the county with 1,344 votes with recount procedures. “I — were discovered missing sev-
mary election ballots missing The winner of the Demo- on Election Day. The memory — down one from results pre- think that everything was done eral days after the election by
from two precincts in Cibola cratic primary will face Jose devices were inserted in a dif- sented to the state canvassing that’s possible to make sure that the Clerk’s Office. Ballot boxes
County. Local election officials Silva, a Grants Republican, in ferent tabulator to get a new board last week — and Ulibarri every vote was counted, and were empty and unlocked.
have said they don’t know what
happened to the ballots.
“I’ve got a problem when you
have missing ballots. How could
they disappear? How could
182 ballots disappear? Where
are they? Of course, there is
no answer to that,” Clemente
Sanchez of Grants said in a tele-
phone interview.
Attorney General Gary King’s
office is “reviewing the matter
in Cibola County but I have no
timeline or indication of what
comes next, if anything,” Phil
Sisneros, a spokesman for King,
said in an e-mail on Thursday.
Bags of trash from the Cibola
County polling places on Elec-
tion Day have been impounded,
but there has been no examina-
tion of the trash to determine
whether it includes ballots, said
George Trujillo, the county’s
election coordinator.
He said county officials do
not want to tamper with the
trash bags until it’s decided
whether the trash must be
examined and how to sort
through the material. The trash
bags are at the sheriff’s office
for safekeeping.
The recount in Senate Dis-
trict 30, which covers parts of
Cibola, Valencia and Socorro
counties, was ordered because
of a new state law requiring
automatic recounts when the
margin between the top two
candidates is less than one-half
of 1 percent. Results of the

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