The final votes have been counted in Minidoka County's down-to-the-wire commissioner election, and incumbent Dan Stapelman is still the victor. Stapelman and the rest of the county spent a nervous weekend after 21 ballots which had not been counted last Tuesday were discovered on Friday. Stapelman's lead after Tuesday? Twenty votes.

Stapelman's challenger, Kent McClellan, acknowledged the number of discovered votes left him very little chance of making up the margin, but the election's not over until County Clerk Duane Smith says it is.

As it turned out, McClellan picked up eight of the 17 newly-discovered ballots cast for Republicans. Stapelman received six.

A quick look at how Mini-Cassia voted for other positions shows a preference among Democrats for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, bucking the state trend. Area Democrats were less enthusiastic about the presidential bid of Keith Russell Judd, an inmate ata federal institution in Beaumont, Texas who snuck his way on to Idaho's presidential ballot. Judd pulled a total of 13 votes in Mini-Cassia.

On the Republican side, John McCain, the party's presumptive nominee, registered 3,531 Mini-Cassia votes to 858 for Ron Paul.