The political diversity of Bernalillo County was apparent after full election results came in Wednesday.
The county's Democrats prevailed in the presidential race, while the Republican incumbent took the popular vote in the 1st congressional race.
Sen. John Kerry got about 51 percent of the votes and re-elected President Bush won almost 48 percent in Bernalillo. State Sen. Richard Romero received 45.9 percent of the vote against Rep. Heather Wilson's 54 percent in the race for the House.
Kena Hudson, spokeswoman for the Romero campaign, said Romero does not intend to run again and has other ideas for the future.
"Right now his plans are to take a long vacation," she said.
Romero was disappointed he lost, she said, but not disappointed in the campaign they ran.
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"We ran a good campaign," she said. "We talked about the tough issues. We had great turnout, and we have a lot to be proud of."
Wilson's campaign manager, Enrique Carlos Knell, agreed Romero ran a good race. "It was a very decisive victory against a well-known and well-funded challenger," he said.
Democrats and independents contributed to Wilson's victory, Knell said.
"You have to work hard and campaign," he said. "Heather is grateful to everyone who helped her and supported her on the campaign."
The single urban government charter, which would combine the city of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County into one body of government, didn't pass - 90,534 votes went for the proposition and 127,880 went against.
Patrick Baca chaired the commission that drew up the proposed charter. He said Bernalillo County is growing. Without a unified government, he said, Albuquerque residents would eventually pay higher taxes for the larger unincorporated areas of the county.
"I think that it's really tragic that they didn't accept the new charter," Baca said. "That shows the lack of understanding people have of local and county governments."
One decision could be good news for UNM students.
The Higher Education Capital Improvements Bond passed in a landslide. The bond allocates up to $94,892,000 for all six New Mexico universities. About 60 percent of voters passed the bond.
Public Information Officer for Bernalillo County Liz Hamm said the county clerk saw no surprises in this election.
"Mary (Herrera) was really pleased with how smoothly it all ran," she said. "There were no real problems."
A debate over a box of absentee ballots was resolved during a hearing Wednesday. Attorneys argued for two hours on whether the box should be counted since they were time-stamped after the deadline Tuesday.
Hamm said the decision of Wednesday's hearing would allow the 286 absentee ballots to be counted at the County Clerk's Office during the canvass, when official results are announced.
At least 13,000 people were flagged at the polls during the general election to show some form of ID, Hamm said, but she said that number is just an estimation given to their office.
"Whether or not that happened, I don't know," she said.
More than 6,000 absentee ballots were rejected by the voting machines on Tuesday and had to be hand counted. Volunteers were still working on those numbers Wednesday evening.
