LOVELOCK — The newest member of the Pershing County Commission will be primary election winner Joe Crim Jr. who trounced three fellow Republicans by a substantial margin. Early next year, he will replace Commissioner Carol Shank who must leave the board due to the 12-year term limit.
County Clerk-Treasurer Lacey Donaldson released the preliminary election results on the night of the primary with the final results to be released early this week (Monday) after any additional mail-in ballots had been counted. The preliminary count was 324 votes for Crim, 176 votes for Charles “Chuck” Sayles, 140 votes for Rodney Wilcox and 66 votes for David Skelton.
Due to the closed primary, only registered Republicans could vote for any one of the four Republicans running for county commission. It was the only local partisan race on the ballot.
Crim holds the full-time city job of Lovelock Public Works Director but Mayor Mike Giles said he has no issues with Crim also attending to the time-consuming job of county commissioner.
“We’ll make it work,” Giles said. “I have no concerns because he’s a supervisor. There are certain rules and regulations that apply to supervisors that aren’t rank and file employees and we have a seven-day work week. People are doing stuff on weekends already. The sewer plant never shuts down and somebody has to be there daily to check on things. Who knows what committees he’s going to sit on at the county. We’ll sit down and work on it and he’ll be able to meet his commitments to the citizens of Pershing County and be able to still serve the city.”
Although he had no challengers, Sheriff Jerry Allen was on the local ballot and received 939 votes (100 percent of the votes). Also on the local ballot with no challengers were School Board Trustee candidates James Evans and Cindy Plummer. Evans received 884 votes, Plummer earned 883 votes so both will step into two open seats on the Pershing County School Board.
After the election, Donaldson estimated election day turnout was low at about 28 percent. According to Friday’s unofficial results on the Nevada Secretary of State website, the total Pershing County voter turnout was 33.6 percent including 288 election day voters, 233 early voters, 516 mail-in ballot voters and zero absentee voters for a total so far of 1,037 voters.
POLL WORKERS NEEDED
Donaldson was short on poll workers so the only official polling station was at the community center in Lovelock. Normally, there would be a polling station at the Grass Valley Community Center but only one poll worker was available to collect the ballots dropped off at that location.
Poll workers are needed for the General Election in November, Donaldson said. Poll workers must be registered voters in Pershing County, be available for the entire day of the election and attend training sessions. Contact Donaldson at 775-273-2208 for more information.
A NEW WRINKLE
As he and his wife Carol Shank waited for release of the preliminary election results in Lovelock, Pershing County Republican Party Chairman John Shank said he expected a higher voter turnout in a county dominated by Republicans. The most recent registered active voter count on the county website indicates Republicans outnumber Democrats by almost three to one and that there are more Nonpartisan voters than Democrats in the county.
“I was expecting a little higher turnout,” he said. “I don’t know what the percentage is but usually we’re over 50 percent on these primaries. Let’s see where it turns out. We’ve had a lot of people running for a lot of different offices and that’s made a big difference in the turnout because people don’t know a lot of the candidates. Did you look at the ballot? There were 17 people on the Republican side running for governor.”
Shank said the mail-in ballots sent to all voters are “a new wrinkle” that he does not support due to the possible voter fraud that could occur especially “in the big cities where the masses are.”
“I don’t like the mail-in ballots. I think our duty, as it has been over the years, is to come in, you vote, you have the right to vote,” he said. “The law says you can take time off work to go vote. Fraud is possible in anything. I think our biggest problem right now is the populace mistrusts the federal government because we do know that they do lie to us.”
Carol Shank said she supports term limits for politicians at all levels of government.
“I believe in term limits. When you get to the federal level, it’s totally bad. They should have term limits, just like we do,” she said. “People become institutionalized (at the federal level) and it’s bad because they have lost total touch with reality and what’s best for the country.”
