{"id":39575,"date":"2022-07-09T00:06:10","date_gmt":"2022-07-09T06:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/candelaria-holds-on-to-win-montezuma-commissioners-race\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:50:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:50:37","slug":"candelaria-holds-on-to-win-montezuma-commissioners-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/candelaria-holds-on-to-win-montezuma-commissioners-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Candelaria holds on to win Montezuma commissioner\u2019s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma
Montezuma County Commissioner Jim Candelaria, who is running for a second term for District 1, and his wife, Jan, read his candidate caucus letter during the Precinct 5 Republican caucus Tuesday night at the Elks Lodge. (Jim Mimaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

After final ballots were verified for signatures, Republican Montezuma County Commissioner Jim Candelaria secured his bid for a second term in the June 28 Republican primary.<\/p>\n

Candelaria beat Republican challenger Tim Lanier 38.03% to 36.71%, or 2,072 votes to 2,000, according to updated unofficial results released Friday by Montezuma County Clerk and Recorder Kim Percell.<\/p>\n

Liz Tozer was third with 25.24% or 1,375 votes.<\/p>\n

At the end of election night June 28, Candelaria had a 61-vote lead, but about 200 ballots were set aside because of signature discrepancy and verification issues.<\/p>\n

Based on Colorado law, voters with signature discrepancies on their ballots are contacted by the Clerk\u2019s Office and have eight days to verify their signature and ballot.<\/p>\n

Percell said 75 of those voters verified their ballots by the deadline, and the votes were counted.<\/p>\n

Of the signature discrepancy ballots verified, 34 votes went to Candelaria, 23 votes went to Lanier, and 18 votes went to Tozer.<\/p>\n

The signature verification process allows voters to correct mistakes signing the ballot envelope, Percell said. Common mistakes are forgetting to sign a ballot, or accidentally signing another person\u2019s ballot mailed to a shared address.<\/p>\n

Election judges set aside unresolved ballots for the eight-day signature verification process.<\/p>\n

Voters who verify their signature and ballot do not change choices made on the ballot.<\/p>\n

The close commissioner race does not qualify for an automatic recount, Percell said. The margin must be 1 percentage point or less for an automatic recount. Candelaria won by 1.32 percentage points.<\/p>\n

Lanier can request a recount but would have to pay for it, according to election rules.<\/p>\n

Candelaria will be alone on the ballot in the November general election because no challenger is running against him.<\/p>\n

Election canvass judges will conduct election audits Monday. The audit involves pulling a random batch of ballots, and checking that they were accurately recorded. After every county passes the audit, the election is certified by the Colorado Secretary of State.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican incumbent wins by slim margin; verified signature ballots don\u2019t change outcome<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,308,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-local-elections","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84372,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39575\/revisions\/84372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39575"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}