Sunland election plagued by lap dance

SUNLAND PARK, N.M. (KRQE) - The voters have spoken in the election that’s made national news for all the wrong reasons.

In spite of claims Interim Mayor Daniel Salinas blackmailed a rival opponent with a sex tape, Salinas has won the election. According to unofficial results Salinas won Tuesday’s election by less than 100 votes.

This slim margin has some claiming voter fraud.

State police were on patrol Tuesday and Secretary of State Dianna Duran even made a special trip down south to monitor the election.

If the count is legitimate then it appears Sunland Park voters were more forgiving of Salinas than they were of Gerardo Hernandez, who was caught on tape getting a lap dance from a stripper in his campaign office.

Hernandez suspects the results are bogus and those claims aren’t totally unjustified. State police arrested a city worker Tuesday night, the woman who lives in El Paso tried to vote in the Sunland Park election.

Hernandez also earned more votes at the polls Tuesday but Salinas apparently scored five times as many votes in early and absentee votes.

When asked if Hernandez believed the results have anything to do with the video which surfaced a few weeks ago, Hernandez said he would only challenge the vote if he believed something fishy was going on as far as voter irregularities and he believe such acts did occur.

Duran also voiced her concern Tuesday explaining that she would not have come to Sunland Park from Santa Fe if she did not have concerns about the election and how it was handled.

Investigators say they found six early or absentee votes from people in El Paso and suspect there are at least a dozen more.

Salinas was no where to be found Tuesday after a judge banned him from city property when he was let out of jail on extortion charges.

Turns out if Salina is declared the winner and named mayor Friday, he could still be banned from city hall.

And if he’s eventually convicted of the felony charges against him, he will be booted from office by state law.