Latah County approves primary election results

The Latah County Commissioners voted to make the May 21 primary election results official Tuesday.

Latah County Auditor Julie Fry said this year’s primary election had a 25% voter turnout. That amounts to 5,795 voters.

The incumbent candidates won the contested District 6 legislative races. Rep. Lori McCann, with 2,814 votes, beat out fellow Republicans Colton Bennett and Dave Dalby.

Republican Sen. Dan Foreman edged out Robert Blair in the District 6 Senate race with 3,396 votes to Blair’s 2,983.

The Democrat races were uncontested, so state senator candidate Julia Parker and state representative candidate Trish Carter-Goodheart both moved on to the general election.

All Latah County Commissioner races were uncontested, which means Tony Johnson, Mark Thorne, incumbent John Bohman and Jason Stooks moved forward.

Sheriff Richie Skiles was the only Republican in the primary election for Latah County Sheriff.

The Genesee, Troy, Whitepine and Potlatch school levies all passed.

Fry said her office had to scramble to overcome ballot shortages in certain precincts.

For example, she said new ballots had to be delivered to Deary three times on election day.

She said preparing for primary elections is difficult because of the variety of ballots that need to be sent out and the difficulty in estimating the turnout.

According to Fry and Latah County Elections Director Nancy Griffin, the polling locations had an express vote machine that allowed people to vote even when there were shortages of ballots.

Fry said her office will use this experience to train poll workers. Her office is also planning to buy another ballot printer.

Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.