Yuma County will have one new commissioner.
The City of Yuma will move to November municipal elections in 2025.
The Town of Eckley approved a tax increase, but defeated allowing marijuana operations.
Yuma’s Cory Gardner will no longer be a United States Senator.
The presidential election still was undecided Wednesday morning.
Those were just some of the results from a crowded ballot in the 2020 General Election, which came to an end Tuesday, November 3.
Yuma County had an incredible 86-percent participation. Out of 5,743 active voters in Yuma County, a total of 4,931 ballots were cast, according to the latest update on the Yuma County Election Results website.
Yuma County’s results will not be official until later this month, but results Tuesday night tell the tale.
Long-time Yuma County Commissioner Dean Wingfield will see his tenure end at six terms. Republican Scott Weaver
The City of Yuma’s ballot question seeking to move the municipal elections to the first Tuesday in November in odd-years beginning in 2025 easily passed with 70-percent of Yuma voters (843-369) in favor of moving away from April municipal elections.
The Town of Eckley had two ballot questions. Eckley voters approved a 2.1-percent sales tax on a 63-36 vote, increasing taxes annually by $60,000 beginning in 2021, and whatever amounts are raised into the future. The funds will be used for community infrastructure and maintenance.
However, Eckley voters also voted against, 38-59, a ballot question asking to repeal a Colorado ordinance prohibiting marijuana cultivation facilities, marijuana product manufacturing facilities, marijuana testing facilities and retail marijuana stores, and permitting such facilities in Eckley.
Those were the local ballot races and questions.
As for more far-ranging races, Yuma County stayed decidedly Republican.
Gardner easily carried Yuma County, garnering 86 percent of the vote (4,200-632) against Democrat challenger John Hickenlooper. However, the former Colorado governor easily won the statewide vote, 54 to 44 percent.
Gardner, a Yuma native and still a resident, served as a congressman before being elected to the U.S. Senate six years ago, and before that was a state legislator.
In the race for President of the United States, Donald Trump received 83 percent of the vote in Yuma County, compared to 16 percent for Democrat Joe Biden. That race nationwide still was undecided as of Wednesday morning, though Biden held a tenuous lead in the Electoral College votes. Biden did win Colorado with 56 percent of the vote.
In the race for Gardner’s former seat for Colorado’s District 4 in the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican incumbent Ken Buck collected 86 percent of the vote in Yuma County, compared to 13 percent for Democrat Ike McCorkle. Buck won the race overall in District 4 with 60 percent of the vote.
Republican incumbent Rod Pelton ran unopposed for a second term as state representative for District 65, and Republican Travis Sides ran unopposed for his first term as District Attorney for the 13th Judicial District.
Of the numerous ballot questions, Yuma County voted against the one to impose taxes on vaping products, though it passed statewide. Yuma County voters were decidedly against reintroducing gray wolves into Colorado. However, it passed by 10,000 votes statewide, 50.2 to 49.8 percent.
Yuma County was strongly against the national popular vote deciding the presidential election, though it did pass statewide. Yuma County voted in favor of banning abortions when the probably gestational age is at least 22 weeks, but it lost statewide.
Reducing the state income tax from 4.63 percent to 4.55 percent passed both in the county and statewide.
In a final note about the election, in Yuma County, the Libertarian candidate for POTUS earned 52 votes. After that, the ticket that received the most votes in the county — besides the two major candidates – was entertainer Kanye West with nine.
