Incumbents for Sheriff and Assessor set to be re-elected, per unofficial results

The incumbents in the offices of La Paz County Sheriff and La Paz County Assessor seem set to be re-elected, based on the latest unofficial election results in this general election of 2024.

William Ponce looks poised to be re-elected as Sheriff after taking almost two-thirds of the vote in unofficial results against Donald Schlect, who ran in the general election as an independent.

Anna Camacho also looks set to be re-elected as La Paz County Assessor after a challenge by Vivian Hartless, who also ran as an independent.

The results may demonstrate the difficulty of being elected as an independent in La Paz County, which is heavily Republican and where independents and Democrats often struggle to get majorities, perhaps because some people may choose to vote the party line. This puts pressure on primary elections, where races are often decided well in advance of the general election in any given year.

But in 2024, those primaries also favored incumbents over challengers. Ponce won the primary against John Walker, David Plunkett took the District 1 Supervisor win against Missi Gilbert, and Duce Minor won his District 2 Supervisor seat again by just 3 votes after a recount.

Other results: Deanna Beaver and Kelly McGuire are in the lead for Parker School Board; Chris Chambers, Jeff Daniel and Wayne Posey have the lead votes so far on the Buckskin Fire Board as of the count on Wednesday afternoon. La Paz County voted in favor of adding abortion rights to the state constitution, with a current tally around 3008 votes to 2520.

The County Elections Department says there around 2000 ballots remaining to be counted, which will be added to the 5,921 in the current tally.

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In other news, a BOMB THREAT to the Elections Department turned up nothing.