High Voter Turnout Seen

The Decorah CSD Special Election on Tuesday September 10, 2024, had very high turnout.  For reference, the last Special School Election held for Decorah (and North Winn) was the School Consolidation Election in 2018 which had just under 1000 voters participate.  The numerous contentious Bond Referendums held 14+ years ago when the Decorah CSD was trying to build a new Middle School routinely garnered 1500-1800 voters.  Regular School Election held in Septembers in 2017 and earlier (before they were combined with City Election) regularly saw 200-400 voters turnout.   In the Election Tuesday September 10^th, 2433 voters cast ballots.

It was an unexpectedly high turnout.  The polling site ran out of pre-printed ballots midway through the day.  County Auditor, Benjamin Steines, made arrangements to have more ballots printed at a local print shop.  Because of security features made into the pre-printed ballots, the votes cast at the end of the day needed to be hand counted by the bi-partisan 5-person team of Precinct Election Officials that worked the polls Election Day.  Steines reported there were no inconsistencies or irregularities with this process, with the only issue being that results took a little longer to be tabulated.  A big thank you goes out to the Precinct Election Officials for a long day full of processing voters and counting ballots.

Steines reports that after the Special School Election process wraps up, he will begin preparations for the upcoming General Election on November 5^th.  Candidate certifications have been finalized.  Sample ballots should be posted on the County’s website by the end of next week.  Absentee voting for the November Election begins October 16^th with in-person voting at the Auditor’s Office and ballots going out in the mail that day.