Milan candidate seeks recount

Discrepancies in the voter signature lists for the voters in the Milan trustee and municipal judge election has prompted candidate David Alcon to ask village manager Carlos Montoya Thursday morning to start proceedings for a recount of Tuesday's election results.

"If voters were not on the list of voters, a call was made to the county clerk and the voter was given a ' special confirmation slip' to vote in the election," said Alcon. "At that point, in my opinion, the whole election became null and void."

Village clerk Roseanne Lopez told Alcon, "All of the voters on the lists should have been confirmed by Feb. 3 to be eligible to vote in the election. Also the lists I received were not correct. I tried several times to get the correct list, but they still were not correct on election day."

Judge Mary Lundstrom and fellow trustee candidate Valerie Mirabal supported Alcon in his allegations.

Lundstrom told Carlos Montoya that she agreed "whole heartedly" with Alcon and was just there to show her support for him and the election process.

Montoya said, "I have calls in to the county and the state attorney and I will follow the procedures recommended and I will keep you informed. We have plenty of time to get you filed before the filing period expires."

After the dust had settled and a problem with a voting machine at the fire station was ironed out, the voters in Milan had elected Vivian Brumbelow and Manuel Molina to four-year terms on the village board of trustees Tuesday. Brumbelow topped all candidates with 201 votes followed by Molina with 190. David Alcon was next with 180 and Eric Vigil was close behind with 173. Incumbent trustee Joe Chavez received 120 votes and newcomer Valerie Mirabal accounted for 39 votes. All vote totals are unofficial until verified by the election board.

The candidates along with family and friends were assembled at the Milan fire station after the election awaiting the final tabulation of votes. One of the two voting machines at the station was unable to produce a printout of the votes recorded on the machine. The race for trustee was so close that the 30 or so votes contained on the malfunctioning machine were crucial to the outcome of the election.

Milan village clerk Roseanne Lopez called the county to solve the problem.

"Patricia Maxey from the county clerk's office was able to take the cartridge from the bad machine and place it in the good machine to produce the printout," said Lopez.

The race for municipal judge was not as close. When Mayor Tom Ortega announced the results at the V.F.W. hall he said, "For municipal judge, Willie Jaramillo - by a landslide."

Jaramillo outpaced incumbent judge Mary Lundstrom 301 to173.

Jaramillo said, "I owe it all to my wife, Mary. Without all of her support and help, I wouldn't be here today talking to you as a municipal judge."

Voter turnout was strong with 474 of the slightly more than 1400 registered voters casting ballots in the election. John T. Felty