Jal voters turn out in large numbers

By John Earp

This past Tuesday, according to the volunteer workers present at Jal City Hall, a total of 345 votes had been cast in the general election on that day alone. Roughly the same number of votes had also been cast in the early voting the previous Friday and Saturday at city hall, according to City Clerk Molly Sanchez. In comparison to more typical election turnouts in recent years, this would likely be a record of huge proportions for our town. Usual turnouts for elections in Jal have been less than 300 votes. As expected, Lea County turned out big for Donald Trump, with about 80% of the votes in the county going for the former president, and only 18% going for Vice President Kamala Harris in this election. Also as expected, the majority of the rest of the state voted heavily in favor of the Democrat Party candidate, Ms. Harris, with her being projected to win the state by CNN by 51.3%, compared to 46.6% for Mr. Trump. As of 10:35 p.m. Tuesday night, Trump was leading in projected electoral college votes, with CNN giving him 246 to 182 for Harris, with Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona still being too close to call, but leaning Trump. Just a little past midnight, Fox News called the election for Trump based on the trending data from battleground states. CNN, ABC and even the Associated Press appeared reluctant to concede that Trump had won several battleground states, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, even after a large majority of those states’ votes had been tallied. By the early morning, all networks had finally conceded that Mr. Trump had won the election, both in popular votes as well as where it mattered most, the electoral college.