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Latest tally edges van Beek, Archibeque closer

EAGLE, Colorado – County vote counters tallied 80 more ballots Thursday, and James van Beek clawed six votes closer in his bid to oust incumbent Joe Hoy.

Or from the other perspective, Joe Hoy is still 129 votes ahead of challenger James van Beek. Hoy was up by 135 votes Wednesday before these latest 80 were added to the tally.

In the county surveyor’s race, Dan Corcoran leads Ted Archibeque by 159 votes, again six votes closer than their race was Wednesday.



Either way, the winners won’t be decided until Friday night or possibly Monday, said Teak Simonton, Eagle County’s Clerk and Recorder.

The updated results release Thursday afternoon include 80 more ballots received from outlying polling places, after the polls closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Simonton said.

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Simonton said there is at least two days’ work required on the 186 provisional ballots that were cast Tuesday.

Provisional ballots are used when voters who were sent mail ballots do things like show up in person to vote, or voters forget to bring identification to the polls. Every provisional ballot must be hand counted and reviewed by the canvass board, which consists of members of the Democratic and Republican parties as well as the Clerk and Recorder, Simonton said.

“We are very sensitive to the fact that the candidates and the public are anxious to know the results,” Simonton said. “However, an accurate count must be our first priority.”

Also, approximately 50 ballots have deficiencies that by law, voters have eight days to correct. These include ballots with signatures that don’t match voter rolls, or mail ballots returned without signatures. Each of those voters must be contacted individually, a process already under way, Simonton said.

Even when they’re done, they might not be done.

If the margin in either race is closer that one-half of 1 percent, it automatically goes to a recount.

Hoy has spent the last 21 years with the Eagle County Sheriff’s office, the last eight as sheriff.

Van Beek spent 12 years with the Sheriff’s Office, then eight years working around the world starting and training police forces in Third World war zones, concentrating in Kosovo and the Middle East – Iraq and Afghanistan.


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