Tuesday election results

Another Mountain Home election will be decided by the flip of a coin, this time in the Mellen Sub Water District, where three candidates tied for the fifth position on the board.

Tuesday's election for the small water district actually saw four sets of ties, but four of the candidates involved in two of those sets of ties received enough votes to be elected.

Davis French and Darrell Liebert each received 17 votes, and incumbent Tom Horgan and challenger Angel Morrison received 15 votes, to earn election to the board.

With 12 votes each, incumbent Art Vagt and challengers Silvia Vagt and Bart Eben will face a coin flip for the fifth board position.

County election officials anticipate calling the three candidates in to the commissioner's room at the courthouse Thursday, Nov. 12, at 10 a.m., to have them each flip a coin. Based on updated information from the Secretary of State's office the coin toss procedure will work like this. All three candidates will flip a coin and unless all three coins wind up the same, in which case the candidates would reflip, the "odd" coin of the three will be eliminated. Then the two remaining candidates will decide who calls out heads or tails while it is in the air when County Clerk Marsa Plummer flips the coin. The winner will be elected.

The other tie that occurred in the election was between Gene Denny and incumbent Ron Hazuka, who each received eight votes.

Last spring a position on the Mountain Home School board was eventually resolved -- months later -- by a coin flip, the method set by state law for determining ties.

Five of the candidates in the water district election, Morrison, French, Denny, Eben and Liebert, also were on the ballot for the West Side Sewer District election. French was the only one to win on both ballots. Such a double victory is allowed by state law.

For both the Mellen Sub Water Districts and the West Side Sewer districts it was the first contested election since the districts had been formed. Both districts had faced problems this year after it was discovered they had failed, in every election since they had been formed initially, to provide adequate legal notice for their elections.

The West Side Sewer District saw three of the four incumbents on the ballot re-elected Tuesday, and will have two new faces on the board.

That election is, however, under review by county officials after some questions concerning the election were raised.

Incumbents Donald Gust, Tag Hawks and Whitney Little won re-election with 29, 27 and 25 votes, respectively. New to the board will be Robin Hawks and French, both of whom received 25 votes.

Votes received by the other candidates were: Incumbent Noble Crook Jr., 24, and challengers Angel Morrison, 24, Darrell Liebert, 19, Gene Denny, 16, Bart Eben, 14, and write-in candidate Don Pachner, 6.

At the sewer district election, however, there were two people who cast votes who did live in the district (similar to the problem of the spring school district election).

The top five candidates will be seated, following the official canvass of votes Friday, Nov. 6, but because of that irregularity, any eligible voter in the district can file a challenge to the election until Friday, Nov. 27, at 5 p.m., in the district court. District court officials can give details on how to file a challenge, but there is a filing fee and a significant bond would have to be posted before any challenge could proceed in the courts. Costs related to whatever fix the judge would order would be taken from the bond.

Some other irregularities relating to actions taken by the existing board before the election also are under review by the county prosecutor's office.

In Glenns Ferry, Mayor JoAnne Lanham easily turned back a challenge from Glenn Thompson, 204-88, to win re-election to another term.

In the race for city council seats, Chris Bryant received 193 votes and Billie Dillon earned 127 to win election to the two open positions on the Glenns Ferry council.

Trailing the two winners were Earl Gardner with 111 votes, Lou Howard with 81 and Ralph Jones with 48.

In Mountain Home, incumbents Alain Isaac and Rich Urquidi were unopposed in their re-election bids for third terms to the Mountain Home City Council. Urquidi received 175 votes and Isaac received 158.

Due to a lack of candidate challenges, the elections in the rural fire district and highway district were canceled, as provided for by state law. Chris Alzoa was declared elected to the fire district board and Linda Jensen was declared elected to the highway district board.

All election results are unofficial until the ballots are canvassed within the next week.