Wheeler leading in sheriff's race
—Photo by ERIC PLUMMER Helen Newton takes an election ballot from Darrell Van Dyken on Tuesday at Sandpoint Community Hall, before announcing “Darrell Van Dyken has voted.” Newton, assistant judge of the poll workers for the Sandpoint Precinct, said many in the group have been working elections together for more than 20 years.
Connolly
SANDPOINT — With a flood a write-in ballots for several races, election officials had to count through the night to determine the winners of county elections, with the final totals released about 11:30 a.m.
In the final unofficial results, Jeff Connolly garnered 16,023 votes and Dan McDonald had 15,536 votes respectively for the District 2 and District 3 county commission seats. Both ran unopposed for their Bonner County Commission seats.
Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler won in an impromptu rematch of his earlier primary contest against Terry Ford, a moderate whom Wheeler also bested in the May Republican primary. Ford encouraged voters to support him as a write-in candidate against the constitutional sheriff, which contributed to the write-in logjam at county election headquarters.
Wheeler again defeated Ford, 13,533 to 4,862.
County prosecutor Louis Marshall sought re-election and was unopposed on the ballot. He had 15,709 votes in the latest tallies.
The ballot-counting blunder came in spite of low-key and uncompetitive county elections this election day. Only one candidate was on the ballot for each of the two county commissioner seats up for grabs this year. Priest River city council member Jeff Connolly defeated incumbent county commissioner Todd Sudick in the Republican primary this spring, and no Democrat sought a spot on the ballot to oppose him this November, leaving the results a foregone conclusion. Dan McDonald faced a similar situation in district three, where his primary win over fellow Republican Lewis Rich and the lack of a Democratic opponent in the general election meant that election night was a cakewalk.
In West Bonner Library District sought approval for a three-year, $267,000 plant facilities fund levy designed to improve and expand district facilities. In the latest voting tallies released, the measure had 1,769 yes votes and 1,435 no votes. The West Pend Oreille Fire District Bond received 1,561 yes votes and 697 no votes in the latest ballot totals released.
Three positions on the Bonner County Soil and Water Conservation District were left open for write-ins. In the latest results, incumbent supervisors Harry Menser, Cassie Tauber, and Alice M. Wallace, who sought re-election to the offices, had 502 votes, Tauber had 525 and Wallace had 574 respectively.