Price ahead in smooth running election day

Unofficial election returns Tuesday night showed mayoral candidate Christian Price well ahead of City Councilman Carl Diedrich with 60 percent of the votes cast in his favor versus 39 percent for Diedrich with 3,851 ballots counted.

In the council race for three seats, Bridger Kimball was declaring victory at a gathering at Native New Yorker with 29 percent of the 8,787 votes cast in his favor. Candidate Leon Potter was running ahead of incumbent Marvin Brown at 26 percent versus 25 percent, respectively, of the votes cast. Rosalin Sanhadja was in last place Tuesday night with 18.6 percent of the vote.

Ballots that came into the county’s election department Tuesday through the mail, or from ballot boxes at City Hall and county offices in Casa Grande and Florence county offices that closed at 7 p.m. will be counted Wednesday or Thursday.

City Clerk Vanessa Bueras estimated 100 to 150 ballots had been dropped off in Maricopa  on Election Day.

Just after sealing the voting box Tuesday night, Bueras said the day of voting was steady and smooth.

“There weren’t any problems, not very many questions,” she said. “People knew where to go. They were on a mission.”

Bueras, who has been city clerk since August 2006, and has been with the city for all of its elections, said this year’s voting “probably was low for an all-mail ballot, but good for us because in the last election when there was only a council and mayor election in the 2008 primary, turnout was just over 6 percent.”

Pinal County Elections Director Steve Kizer said the county sent out 20,000 mail-in only ballots to Maricopa voters, and by Monday afternoon about 4,000 had been returned to the county elections department.

“Honestly, the turnout does seem to be a little low,” Kizer said. 

In the town of Florence – the only other Pinal County all mail-in ballot election in Tuesday’s primary – about 50 percent of the 4,000 voters already had sent in their ballots by Monday afternoon.

Bueras said other cities using mail-in only ballots in the past have experienced 30 percent and 40 percent turnout.