The polls have closed and the race to count Jefferson County voters’ ballots has wrapped up. As unofficial results indicate, some candidates won their races by a landslide, while others required a photo finish.
Jefferson County Sheriff/coroner candidate Tom Grimsrud took the lead over Chad Cross early Nov. 9, after Cross led for most the evening on Election Day. Grimsrud maintained the advantage. As of Nov. 14, final numbers had Grimsrud finishing with 3,434 votes while Cross finished with 2,571 votes. There were 10 write-in votes.
For Jefferson County’s district one Commissioner, Mary Janacaro Hensleigh trailed with 1,799 votes to Dan Hagerty’s 4,034. There were 18 write-in votes.
The proposed constitutional amendment No. 48 — which would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before searching one’s electronic data — received 5,152 votes in favor and 1,141 votes against. Statewide, 361,602 people voted for the amendment and 77,667 voted against it.
Although votes in favor of legislative referendum No. 121 — the Born Alive Infant Act — led by one vote in the first count, but votes against inched slightly further ahead. The race remained close, with 3,209 “no” votes and 3,129 “yes” votes.
The statewide count had 234,365 votes against and 211,659 votes in favor of the referendum.
The Jefferson Public Health Mill received 3,824 votes for and 2,518 votes against.
In the decision to retain Justice Steve Andersen, 5,333 votes were counted for yes and 415 for no.
In the Supreme Court Justices’ races, Jim Rice finished in the lead with 4,702 votes to Bill D’Alton’s 1,060 and 27 votes for write-ins. In terms of the state, Rice claimed the first position with 305,542 votes over D’Alton’s 88,290.
The second Supreme Court Justice race finished neck-in-neck with Ingrid Gustafson leading with 3,109 votes and James Brown following with 3,104 votes. 10 write-in votes were cast. The race was not as close statewide with Gustafon earning 237,782 and Brown 199,930.
Matt Rosendale received the most votes in the race for U.S. representative of the second house district with 3,752 votes in Jefferson County. Gary Buchanan followed with 1,615 and Penny Ronning next with 1,031. Sam Rankin trailed with 81. There were three write-in votes.
In terms of the state, Rosendale finished first with 121,920 votes over Buchanan’s 47,178 votes, Ronnings’s 43,422 votes and Rankin’s 3,014.
In all, 6,532 Jefferson County residents’ ballots were counted. Clerk and Recorder Ginger Kunz told The Monitor that around 140 provisional ballots – which require signature verification or verification that they did not vote in their previous county, or that they did not return their voted absentee before voting provisionally at the polls – were counted Nov. 14.
