RBC I All the action Tuesday night was on the Republican Party’s primary ballot in Rio Blanco County as Anthony Mazzola easily outdrew Michael Joos as the people’s choice to follow retiring Sheriff Si Woodruff as the county’s top law enforcement officer.
The final votes were counted just prior to 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, and those final but unofficial vote counts had Mazzola with 916 votes (57 percent) to 667 (41 percent) for Joos. Mazzola is currently the chief investigator for the Office of the District Attorney in the Ninth Judicial District while Joos is currently the Rio Blanco County undersheriff.
And while Bob Beauprez won the state GOP race to face off against incumbent Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper in November, Rio Blanco County Republicans preferred Tom Tancredo, who led county party members with 422 votes (26 percent), then came Beauprez with 382 votes (24 percent), Mike Kopp with 336 votes (21 percent) and Scott Gessler with 267 votes (17 percent).
In the contested GOP race for U.S. representative, incumbent Scott R. Tipton drew 1,300 votes for 64 percent of the GOP vote in the county compared to 429 votes for David Cox, with 27 percent of the vote.
Tipton was declared winner of the race early in the evening by several of the Denver networks.
The only other contested GOP race in Rio Blanco County was for the State Board of Education, which was very close all night in the local voting. In the county, Barbara Ann Smith drew 549 votes and Marcia Neal drew 546 votes for a 34-34 percent split.
All other GOP races were uncontested. GOP county voter turnout was at 62 percent, with 1,610 registered party voters casting ballots.
According to the Rio Blanco County Clerk’s Office, 2,600 ballots were sent to county GOP voters with 1,610 having been returned for the 62 percent voter turnout.
On the Democratic side of the ballot, there were no contested races. The clerk’s office sent out 353 ballots to county Democrats and 105 were returned for a voter turnout of 30 percent.
All votes that had been submitted were counted. The last batch of votes was from Rangely, arriving in Meeker at 9:10 p.m.
The county will continue to accept ballots until July 2 from those in the military and those overseas.
Votes will be canvassed and made official July 3.
