By Mary Alice Murphy

The Grant County Commission held a special meeting Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016 immediately prior to its regularly scheduled work session.

The purpose of the special meeting was to have the county commissioners, as the Grant County Canvassing Board, approve the General Election results.

County Clerk Robert Zamarripa said the turnout was about 57 percent of registered voters'"a bit low for a presidential election. We had 62 percent turnout at the past two presidential elections. We had a lot of early voting, because it was held for 28 days. Especially hunters took advantage of early voting. It was an uneventful election."

He said the Secretary of State office has told him to expect the worst, but "it was very smooth on our end. We were the first county to report results about 8 p.m. We couldn't have done it without Marisa Castrillo, Connie Holguin, our staff and the poll workers."

"The Republicans and the Democrats have had lots of challengers and watchers at the polls," Zamarripa said. "I want to caution them. One party believes in voting suppression and the other party in letting everyone vote. We need to resolve this, because we are having trouble finding poll workers. It is getting difficult to find good ones. We all want a good, clean, honest election. It's hard to prove fraud. I don't think it has been done in New Mexico. We want all elections to work as smooth as this one."

Commissioner Ron Hall said: "Your people are highly trained. Thank you. We are so fortunate to have you. I know the next clerk (Castrillo) will also be excellent."

Zamarripa said this year they spent a large amount of time educating people that what they may have read was not true. "A lot of voter education took place this year."

Commission Chairman Brett Kasten said the commissioners would miss Zamarripa as the clerk, "but your staff will do fine. Congratulations for being the first in the state to report."

The canvass was approved and the commissioners reconvened as the Board of Commissioners to hold the work session.

In the work session, Kasten said A 14-year veteran of the Santa Rita Volunteer Fire DepartmentG