Heidi Bunch  Poll workers kept busy in Hawthorne Tuesday as 2,004 of the 2,945 registered Mineral County voters cast their ballots.

Heidi Bunch
Poll workers kept busy in Hawthorne Tuesday as 2,004 of the 2,945 registered Mineral County voters cast their ballots.

Mineral County residents came out in full force to cast their ballot in Election 2016.

The clerk’s office has seen a large influx of newly registered voters in the county (numbers were not available at press time).

Not only does the election choose who our next president and county commissioner will be but this election also opened the doors for residents on the Walker River Reservation who won the right to early voting on their land.

The main contested race was between county commissioner seat A which would have Chris Hegg winning the election with 1,145 over former county commissioner Richard Bryant who got 784 of the votes.

Hegg stated, “I wish to thank the Mineral County voters for this great opportunity to serve you all as commissioner.”

Commissioner seat B was an uncontested race as Commissioner Paul MacBeth told voters at a meet and greet at the VFW Hall in Hawthorne less than a month ago that due to personal issues, he was dropping out of the race. Garth Price would take 1,340 of the votes.

Price told the Independent-News “I’d like to thank all my supporters and contributors for everything. Also thank my family for being by my side through this whole thing. Also thank you to Paul for his four years of service to Mineral County. I can’t wait for the next four years and am looking forward to getting to work. Thanks again Mineral County for voting.”

And vote Mineral County did. With 2,945 registered voters, 2,004 turned out to show their support for the political issues and parties.

The Mineral County School Bond passed considerably, but the fuel tax question received a vote of no. Voters also turned down both question one and two from the state.

The Walker River Paiute Tribe also had an observer at the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 8 when officials from the United States Department of Justice were dispatch to the small town of Schurz to watch for potential civil rights violations, which can include discrimination on the basis of race, gender or religion. Officials from both the Trump and Hillary organizations were also at the Schurz polling place.