Safford School override still too close to call

Jon Johnson Photo/Gila Herald: Vandals have caused roughly $50,000 in damage to the Safford Unified School District's bus barn and storage facilities in the past few months.

Jon Johnson File Photo/Gila Herald: The Safford School override is too close to call until Thursday.

Reported 268 provisional ballots still to be counted

By Jon Johnson

jonjohnsonnews@gmail.com

SAFFORD – The Safford Unified School District will have to wait another day to find out if its budget override has passed or failed.

As of the most recent release from the Graham County Elections Department, the override was failing by just 25 votes, 3,225 to 2,250 against. However, according to Graham County Elections Director Hannah Duderstadt, there are still 268 provisional ballots yet to be counted, and it is unknown how many of those are in the Safford School District.

Duderstadt said they would likely finish counting the provisional ballots on Thursday.

Thatcher School Bond

The Thatcher School bond has been voted down, losing at this point by an unsurmountable 1,521 votes for to 1,970 votes against.

Thatcher School Board

The hotly contested Thatcher School Board race has at least two extremely likely winners, with the third spot still possibly up in the air at this time.

The Gila Herald is calling winners for Kate McClusky with 1,768 current votes, and Kenny Smith with 1,752 current votes. It appears that Debbie Chapman will hold on to the final spot with 1,573 current votes, however, David Udall has 1,518 current votes and due to the remaining provisional ballots and not knowing which area they come from the Gila Herald cannot call the third spot at this time. Rounding out the last candidates in the election includes Nicholas Elkins with 1,292 current votes and Jeremy Devlin with 876 current votes.