On June 7, voters in Lubbock ISD District 1 will vote once again on their board representative.
The first election, on May 7, between incumbent Mario Ybarra and challenger Lala Chavez ended in a tie, each receiving 747 votes.
Friday morning, the LISD Board scheduled the second election in the race. The second election will take place on June 7, with early voting running from May 26 to June 3.
Nancy Sharp with Lubbock ISD said state law dictates how they proceed once there was a tie in the results.
“State law very closely prescribes the timing of the election, we would have loved to do this on the same day as municipal election runoffs, but unfortunately, because of the time frame that is prescribed to us in state law, we would not be able to do that,” Sharp said.
Sharp said they are estimating that this second election could cost up to $75,000.
“That’s just a budgeted amount, when we have an election year, we budget for elections, and so we’ve got money in that line item,” Sharp said.
She also said taxpayers would not see the impact of the cost.
“This year, because our trustee at large was running unopposed, we didn’t have to have that election, so actually from the May 7 elections, we’re running under budget, and so with the special election, if it goes over what we’ve budgeted, we’ll just take it from non-instructional funds,” Sharp said. “For instance, our fuel costs are lower than expected this year, because of the decrease in fuel cost.”
Both candidates decided they did not want the election to be decided by a means of chance, like a coin toss.
“Our kids are much more important than chance,” Chavez said.
“I want the voters to decide because it’s too important to leave it to chance,” Ybarra said.
