Nearly 26,000 people in Dunn County voted in November 5 general election
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — Nearly 26,000 people voted in the November 5 general election in Dunn County, which amounts to about 57 percent of the county’s total population.
The November 5 election was the highest turnout for an election in Dunn County’s history with 25,792 voters, said Andrew Mercil, county clerk, at the Dunn County Board’s November 12 meeting.
Dunn County has 36,516 eligible voters, so the number of people who voted was 71 percent of the eligible voters, he said.
Wisconsin allows same-day voter registration, and there were many hundreds of people registering to vote on November 5. As of the day of the county board meeting, some municipal clerks in the county were still working on updating their records to include the number of voters who registered on the day of the election, Mercil said.
While voter participation in Wisconsin increased for the November 5 election, other states saw voter participation decreasing in comparison to the 2020 election, he said.
Mercil said he wanted to extend his appreciation and gratitude to all of the municipal clerks and election workers in Dunn County who are “election heroes.”
Wisconsin allows voters to vote “in person” with absentee ballots prior to the election, and the November 5 election was the biggest participation ever for early voting by absentee ballot, Mercil said.
Many of the municipal clerks work full-time at another job and are part-time municipal clerks, he said.
Townships in Dunn County typically employ part-time clerks.
When residents of the municipality want to vote in-person with absentee ballots, they often have to make an appointment with the clerk, or the clerk will be at the polling place for certain hours. Many times this year in the weeks before the election, the clerks were working until 9:30 p.m. or 10 p.m., Mercil said.
The Menomonie city clerk moved to the city council chambers to facilitate the constant stream of people participating in democracy for in-person absentee ballot voting, he said.
Election threats
Although there were concerns about threats to election officials, November 5 was a successful Election Day, Mercil said.
People were respectful, and throughout the county, there were only a handful of people “who got gruff,” he said, noting that several people also fainted.
The voting lines at UW-Stout started out at a 90-minute wait, which increased to two hours and then to two and a half hours, he said.
The unofficial final results of the Dunn County November 5 election were in at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, Mercil said.
Municipal clerks and election workers had a long day on November 5. Many of the clerks were at the polling sites by 5:30 or 6 a.m. and then worked until 3 a.m. the following morning, he said.
The polls in Wisconsin open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.
There were 250 poll workers in Dunn County, and 236 of them took training the week before the election, Mercil said.
Officially certifying the votes by the Board of Canvassers started on the Monday before the county board meeting and would be continuing at least through Thursday, the day after the Dunn County Board meeting, he said.
The sheer number of people who voted in Dunn County creates a little more work to certify the election, Mercil said.
Spring elections
Mercil also noted that he had sent a message to the municipal clerks that the Type A notices for the spring elections for school boards and municipal offices were due to be posted and published on the following Wednesday.
Candidates can start circulating nomination papers for school board positions and municipal offices on December 1, he said.
Some of the municipalities in Dunn County nominate candidates for positions by circulating nomination papers requiring a certain number of signatures from residents while other municipalities use a caucus.
According to Wisconsin state statute 8.05 (4)(b) “Nomination papers shall be signed by not less than 20 nor more than 100 electors of the village. The papers shall be circulated not sooner than December 1 preceding the election and shall be filed with the village clerk not later than 5 p.m. the first Tuesday in January, or the next day if Tuesday is a holiday.”
For a caucus, “Between December 1 and January 1 preceding a spring election, the governing body of a town or village nominating candidates by caucus must decide the date on which the caucus will be held. The caucus must be held between January 2 and January 21. The deadline to hold a caucus is not extended if January 21 falls on a weekend. When possible, preference should be given to having the caucus on January 21. The caucus is not required to be conducted on a Tuesday,” according to Wisconsin state statute 8.05(1)(a).
