Despite Hype, Beto Lost Tom Green County by 71%

SAN ANGELO, TX —Tom Green County Commissioners made the Nov. 6 general election results final Tuesday by canvassing the final ballot totals presented by Elections Administrator Vona Hudson.  

The final total was 35,024 ballots cast out of 67,036 registered voters or 52.25 percent of registered voters casting a ballot in a midterm election.  Hudson told commissioners the turnout was as high as a normal Presidential election cycle.

The final numbers for contested local races didn’t change the outcome.  In the race for Justice of the Peace in Pct. 1, Susan Werner had 3,161 votes to Sally Ayana’s 2,168 or 59.32 percent for Werner and 40.68 percent for Ayana.  

In the race for County Commissioner in Pct. 4, incumbent Bill Ford received 89.10 percent of the vote to write-in challenger Gilbert Gallegos’ 10.9 percent.  Ford got 7,303 votes and Gallegos got 893. There were 1,898 under votes cast in that race meaning 18.8 percent of voters who cast ballots in Pct.4 didn’t vote for either candidate.  Some of those under votes may have been because the process for voting for the write-in candidate took an extra effort to write in the candidate’s name. Another possibility for so many under votes is because the race was near the bottom of the ballot where the percentage of under votes was much higher than the under votes in races at the top of the ballot.  

Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz easily carried Tom Green County with 71.18 percent of votes cast to Beto O’Rourke’s 27.98 percent or 24,648 for Cruz and 9,690 for O’Rourke. There were 292 under votes in that race. Statewide, Cruz edged O'Rourke by just over two points, 51.06 percent to 48.33 percent of 8.3 million total votes cast. In the county, Cruz's victory margin was identical to President Trump's 71.45 percent win over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

At the bottom of the Nov. 6 general election ballot were two bond propositions by the San Angelo Independent School District.  Voters rejected proposition A 55.61 percent to 44.39 percent with a surprising 2,109 under votes. That’s 7.48 percent of voters casting ballots but not voting for or against the proposition.  

Proposition B was rejected by voters 57.56 percent to 42.44 percent with 2,107 under votes or 7.47 percent not voting for or against the proposition.  

Officially there were 393 provisional ballots cast.  The Tom Green County Ballot Board met Friday and accepted 105 of them to count rejecting 288.  There were also 3,573 ballots by mail requested and 3,289 of those returned. 284 ballots by mail were not returned and eight were rejected.  Hudson told commissioners there were 118 limited ballots counted. Limited ballots are for voters who are registered to vote somewhere in Texas but not in Tom Green County.  Those voters were allowed to cast ballots in the statewide races that were in common with Tom Green County but they were not allowed to cast ballots for local races.