By L. Parsons Close races countywide were decided by in-person, mail-in and absentee ballots for Navajo County for a total 47,081 votes cast, a high turnout of over 66 percent. More than 31,000 of those were early ballots. There is a total of 70,650 registered voters in the county. These results are not considered official until they are canvassed by municipalities as well as Navajo County. At the Navajo County level, many incumbent elected officials will keep their posts as they ran unopposed. Those include County Attorney Brad Carlyon, who received 30,850 votes; Sheriff David Clouse, with 31,594 votes; Treasurer Kari Hernandez-Lopez, with 30,753 votes; County School Superintendent Jalyn Gerlich, with 30,311 votes; Recorder Michael Sample, with 30,609 votes; and Assessor Cammy Darris, with 30,968 votes. Each will serve four-year terms. Navajo County Superior Court Judges in Districts II, III and IV were also uncontested and Melinda Hardy, who received 32,291 votes; Judge Dale Nielson, who received 34,632 votes; and Judge Michala Ruechel, who received 33,155 votes were declared the winners respectively. The Navajo County Board of Supervisors will swear in new members who ran unopposed. Fern Benally who replaces Lee Jack in District I, received 7,437 votes and Alberto Peshlakai in District II who replaces Jesse Thompson, received 6,774 votes. These two seats represent the Navajo County portions of the Navajo Nation, Hopi Nation and most of the City of Winslow. The new members will be joined by incumbents who also ran uncontested: District III’s Republican Jason Whiting, who received 8,500 votes; District IV’s Republican Daryl Seymore, with 9,792 votes; and District V’s Democrat Dawnafe Whitesinger, who received 5,526 votes. The board members will serve four-year terms. Winslow has named their mayor elect as Roberta “Birdie” Wilcox Cano. Cano garnered over 51 percent of the 2,608 ballots cast against opponent Marshall Losey, who drew 1,288 votes. Cano, who received 1,362 votes becomes the first Native American woman to serve as Mayor of Winslow. Her term will be for two years. Winslow will also seat three new city council members. Jim Maclean, Melissa Butler-Nelson and Peter Cake will each serve four-year terms. Maclean took the most votes in that race at 1,431, with Cake garnering 1,368 and Butler-Nelson with 1,054. The next closest opponent pulling 975 votes was Michael Shumway, followed by Kerwin Lawrence with 791 and veteran council member Judy Howell who received 789 votes. Also up for grabs in Winslow were three Winslow Unified School District Governing Board seats. Newcomer Debbie Martinez took the majority of the votes with 2,456 (29 percent), edging out incumbent Sharon Greenwood who drew 1,883 votes. Returning to the board will be Allen Leonard with 2,022 votes and Joseph Hartnett with 1,979. The term for school board members is four years. Kayenta, Pinon and Show Low also held school board elections. Kayenta Unified School District will be represented by James Nez who took 2,685 votes, Royd Lee with 2, 453 and Joe Bia Jr. who garnered 2,382 votes. In Pinon, incumbent Tommy McCabe III retained his school board seat after receiving 1,393 votes and will be joined by newcomers Dorothy Yazzie who garnered 1,487 votes and Maranda Bitsui who received 1,434. Incumbent president Bessie Allen was not successful in her bid as she received 1,370 votes. Phyllis Tachine also ran and received 855 votes. The Northland Pioneer Community College District will be joined by Kristine Laughter for the next six years. Laughter drew nearly 3,000 more votes than her opponent Joan Ann Gray. Gray received 2,515 votes while Laughter won her seat with 5,356 votes. Laughter will represent Kayenta as she takes over for Daniel Peaches who has been on the governing board since 1985. Joseph City elected Rhonda Roberson and Gary Rice to the sanitation and domestic water improvement districts for four-year terms. Roberson received 293 votes in the race for the sanitation district and Rice 301. In the domestic water improvement district race, she received 308 votes and Rice received 314. Allison Perkins will retain her seat on the Snowflake Town Council for another four years as she ran unopposed and received 1,858 votes. Arizona’s legislative District VI, which includes portions of Navajo, Coconino, Yavapai and Gila counties will be represented in the State House of Representatives by Republican incumbent Walter Blackman who took over 28 percent of the vote with 51,663 ballots and Brenda Barton who drew 47,350 votes. Coral Evans, a democrat and former Flagstaff mayor fell short in the race with 46,865 votes. Republican Wendy Rogers who defeated Sylvia Allen in the District VI primary election in August, will take a two-year seat at the Arizona State Senate thanks to her 58,497 votes to Democrat Felicia French’s 50,205 votes. Representing District VII at the State House of Representatives will be Democratic incumbents Myron Tsosie and Arlando Teller. They received 40,859 and 33,119 votes respectively. Also in the running was Republican James Parks who received 21,151 votes. Jamecita Peshlakai, who ran uncontested and received 53,909 votes, will continue to represent District VII in the State Senate for another two years. District VII includes portions of Navajo, Apache, Coconino, Mohave, Greenlee, Graham, Pinal and Pima counties. Of 4.3 million registered voters in Arizona, 2.9 million cast their votes in the state races. Arizona will send Democrat Mark Kelly to the United States Senate as he beat incumbent appointee Martha McSally by over 120,000 votes. Kelly, who received 1,506,287 to McSally’s 1,384,616 votes will serve a six-year term. Representing Arizona Congressional District One will be Democratic incumbent Tom O’Halleran for the next two years. O’Halleran with 160,776 votes edged out his opponent Republican Tiffany Shedd with 148,084. Voters decided to send Lea Peterson Marquez, who received 1,236,855 votes; James O’Connor, with 1,225,229 votes; and Anna Tovar, with 1,281,870 votes to the Corporation Commission for four-year terms. All except Tovar are Republicans. Tovar is a Democrat. Republican Eric Sloan also ran and received 1,179,353 votes.
