Karen Gleason
Saturday’s runoff election for the Councilperson At-large, Place A seat on the Del Rio City Council went smoothly, election officials said.
City Secretary Mari Acosta and Val Verde County Clerk Generosa “Janie” Gracia-Ramon, who served as the contracted elections administrator for the runoff, emerged from the county courthouse at 7:06 p.m., just six minutes after the polls closed to announce the results of early voting in the contest.
“We only had one race today, and that was for the Place A At-large seat on the city council,” Acosta said.
She announced the incumbent, Councilwoman Diana Bejarano Salgado, had received a total of 474 early votes, and her challenger, former Del Rio police officer Steven Webb, had received a total of 491 early votes.
Acosta said the early vote totals included mail-in ballots and early votes cast in person.
About an hour later, Acosta and Ramon came out of the courthouse again to announce slight changes to the early vote totals they had given earlier.
“This is an update to the early voting. Throughout the day, people could bring their ballots in and drop them off. If they didn’t return them by mail, they had until 7 p.m. today to get them back to us,” Ramon said.
“We had a total of 21 ballots that were returned and dropped off. Those went to the early ballot board at 7 p.m., after we gave you the first results (of early voting). Of those 21 ballots, the ballot board rejected six, so it left 15, so there are 15 additional votes in the new figures we’re about to give you,” she added.
With the addition of the 15 accepted ballots, Webb had garnered a total of 496 early votes, and Salgado had a total of 484 early votes.
The final results of the race were announced at 8:15 p.m. Saturday and included all of the early balloting as well as the votes cast on Election Day, Saturday.
Those total votes showed Webb had won the race with a total of 636 votes. Salgado finished the contest with a total of 545 votes.
“Mr. Webb, you are the winner, sir,” Ramon said after she read off the results.
“Congratulations,” Acosta added.
Asked if there had been any significant problems with the runoff, Ramon replied, “No, not really.”
“There are some outstanding overseas ballots, and of course, this is all unofficial until the ballots are canvassed. There are about 10 overseas ballots that might come in by the 28th, and then we had two provisional ballots today during the day, but they won’t make any difference in the totals we’ve announced here,” Ramon added.
The county clerk joked she and her staff had plenty of election practice over the past year.
“So we’re really looking forward to not having any elections next year,” she said.
Acosta said she was pleased to have had the chance to work with Ramon in carrying out the city elections.
“It was amazing. I know I can always count on Janie and her staff. They are all very hard workers, and I know this wouldn’t have gone as smoothly as it did without their help. The knowledge Janie has, it’s amazing, and I was glad to be able to work with them,” Acosta said.
