E-mail this story
What if you hold an election and no one wanted to run?
That was a scenario that Edison Wauneka, director of the Navajo Election Administration, was looking at on Monday.
There are 754 positions - chapter and school board -that have to be filled and by Monday only 84 people had signed up to run.
The situation was so bad that the election officials began buying up to 10 spots a day on KTNN radio urging people to run and pointing out that the deadline was this past Wednesday.
What Wauneka didn't want to see is what happened four years ago when no one ran for 160 chapter and school board positions as the filing date came and went. Ninety percent of these, said Wauneka were school board positions.
It was so bad that some school boards were without quorums for several months while the election office tried to get people to run in special elections.
This year there's one major difference from four years ago - the cost to file.
In 2004, the filing fee was $25 but two years ago, in a referendum presented to the Navajo voters, the people agreed to raise this to $200 for all positions, including school boards.
By Wednesday, however, the situation showed improvement as candidates began flooding into the election offices throughout the reservation filing for positions.
One of the people registering candidates at the Window Rock Education Center on Wednesday said the sign-ups throughout the morning were steady and most seemed to have no problem with the $200 filing fee.
As for those who do, she said, all she does is point out that it was a decision by the voters.
At just after 5 p.m. Wednesday, Wauneka said he felt a lot better about this year's election.
"We have been busy ever since Monday," he said.
He didn't have any figures from the various district offices but he said reports throughout the day indicated they have been busy.
The election administration began receiving reports late in the afternoon that the district offices were running out of receipts.
That's a good sign, said Wauneka, pointing out that the district offices had receipt books that would have provided enough for 750 positions.
But even with all this, Wauneka said he was pretty sure that when the numbers are totaled today, there will still be some positions, especially those for school boards, that will have no one filing.