Caldwell judge race still headed for runoff

By Miles Smith
LPR Editor

A runoff election to determine the Republican Caldwell County judge nominee is still set for May 22 after a recount of ballots cast in the primary election left frontrunner Hoppy Haden with less than 50 percent of the vote.
Caldwell County Republican Chairperson Kathy Haigler confirmed that all of the early voting, election day and provisional paper ballots had been hand counted on Friday and confirmed that a runoff will be needed to determine whether incumbent Ken Schawe or Haden will face off against Democratic nominee Alfredo Munoz in the general election.
Additionally, all of the iVotronic memory cards were re-run and the new reports for iVotronic early voting and iVotronic election day were compared to the election night reports. The results were exactly the same, Haigler said.
Going into the recount, Haden needed to pick up just nine additional votes to gain the majority needed to eliminate the need for a runoff with Schawe.

Read more about the recount in this week’s Post-Register.