Iron County voters reject school bond, Republican candidates sweep
CEDAR CITY — Iron County voters saw few surprises when the election results were announced late Tuesday evening.
All of Iron County’s county-level races were either unopposed from the beginning or had already been decided in June’s GOP primary.
Still, there appeared to plenty of interest in the midterm election, with an estimated 54.75 percent of eligible voters casting ballots in Iron County. According to the unofficial totals released Tuesday night by Iron County Clerk Jon Whittaker, 11,410 ballots were cast by the county’s 20,840 eligible voters. Of those, 10,498 were submitted via mail, but another 912 were cast in person Tuesday.
At the main voting center at Cedar City’s offices Tuesday evening, several dozen people were seen waiting in line to vote, with wait times reaching an hour or more. Some had just moved and were registering at their new address for the first time, while others simply needed replacement or provisional ballots.
Whittaker said another count would be conducted Friday, wherein any remaining outstanding ballots would be added to Tuesday’s totals.
Following is a short recap of Iron County election results and highlights:
Iron County voters rejected a school bond proposal that would have enabled Iron County School District to issue a series of general obligation bonds totaling $92 million, to pay for the construction of two new elementary schools and various facility upgrades. The measure received just 41 percent support, with 59 percent voting against.
Iron County voters also said no to Question 1 on the ballot, a nonbinding statewide measure that asked voters whether gasoline sales taxes should be raised 10 cents in order to help pay for education. The measure failed by a 2-to-1 margin statewide (66 percent to 34 percent). In Iron County, the nay votes were even higher, with 74 percent against and 26 percent in favor.
Iron County residents joined with the rest of Utah’s District 2 in voting for incumbent Rep. Chris Stewart to retain his U.S. Congressional seat. They also voted to elect Republican Mitt Romney to succeed the retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch. Romney received 62.4 percent of the vote statewide and nearly 72 percent of Iron County’s votes. Stewart, who got 58 percent of the vote districtwide, received approximately 77 percent of Iron County’s votes.
In statewide candidate elections involving Iron County, Republican incumbent and Cedar City resident Evan Vickers won re-election to his seat in Utah Senate District 28, holding off Democratic challenger Mark Chambers by a 79 percent to 21 percent margin.
In Utah House District 71, incumbent Rep. Brad Last, a Republican, won re-election by defeating Democratic challenger Chuck Goode by a 78.2 percent to 21.8 percent margin.
In a three-way race for Utah House District 72, Republican Rex Shipp won with 75.2 percent of the vote. Democrat Zeno Parry received 17 percent and Libertarian Party candidate Barry Short received 7.8 percent.
In addition, the three propositions on Utah ballots all passed at the statewide level, even though a majority of Iron County voters rejected all three.
With regard to the three Constitutional Amendments on the ballot, Iron County voters were mostly in line with the rest of the state in voting in favor of Amendments A and C and rejecting B. The only significant deviation from state results was slightly higher support for Amendment C in Iron County, with the state giving it 63 percent approval and 68 percent in Iron County.
Read more: Southern Utah 2018 election results
Incumbent Iron County Commissioner Mike Bleak, who fended off a challenge from Fred Rowley in the GOP primary in June, was re-elected Tuesday, along with incumbent County Auditor Dan Jessen and incumbent County Clerk Jon Whittaker, who had not faced opposition.
Joining Bleak on the County Commission will be Cedar City Councilman Paul Cozzens, who won Seat B on the commission by defeating three other candidates in the June primary.
Additionally, Ken Carpenter will be the next Iron County Sheriff, and Chad Dotson will be Iron County Attorney, voters confirmed Tuesday. Both were unopposed on the November ballot after emerging victorious in the June primary.
Iron County also had two school board seats on the ballot. Michelle Lambert won re-election in Precinct 4 unopposed. However, in Precinct 5, outgoing county commissioner Dale Brinkerhoff unseated incumbent school board member Harold Haynie. Brinkerhoff received 1,067 votes to Haynie’s 965, according to Tuesday’s unofficial results.
Finally, all of the judges up for retention on this year’s ballot will remain in their respective positions. Each received the support of at least 80 percent of Iron County voters, according to Tuesday’s results.
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