A month after the final ballots were cast, a state-ordered recount conducted last week has confirmed that Estancia Mayor Nathan M. Dial was unseated by a challenger in the Nov. 3 election.
Senaida Anaya, the chief deputy clerk in Torrance County, told New Mexico Political Report that her office completed the recount on Thursday and that the results had not changed. The recount confirmed that Riley Lee Runnel received 68 votes to Dial’s 63. Write-in challenger Boyd Varney also garnered 63 votes.
Automated recounts were also conducted in races for two seats on the Moriarty City Council and three seats on the Estancia Municipal School District Board.
According to the recount results on the Secretary of State’s website, Jonathan Barela, Heather Marie Hedges and Lee Ryan Widner have all been elected to seats on the Estancia school board. Final results from the recount showed Barela had garnered 373 votes, Heather Marie Hedges 257 votes and Widner 247 votes. A fourth contender, Roy Hubbard, finished with 307votes.
In the race for two seats on the Moriarty city council, Robin Spalding and Kenneth Ray Snow came out ahead in the four-way contest. Spalding received 122 votes and Snow received 141 votes. Two other candidates, Robert Ortiz and Maggie Jane Gipson, finished with 118 votes and 96 votes, respectively.
The recounts in Estancia and Moriarty were among 34 local results across New Mexico, where an automated recount had been ordered by the State Canvass Board. The Canvass Board is scheduled to reconvene on Dec. 11 to certify the recount results.
New Mexico state law requires automated recounts in local elections when the margin between two candidates is 1% or less or when the outcome of a ballot question is 0.5% or less. If the outcome of a recount results in a tie, state law dictates that the winner of that election is decided “by lot,” which can mean a card game, coin toss or drawing straws.