After the polls closed on Tuesday, August 9th, I observed at the Town of Koshkonong Star School Road polling place.
I was welcomed by the clerk, Bridget Woods, and introduced to the poll workers. I was impressed with how precise they were in following the steps necessary at the close of voting. The two book poll workers, trained to do their jobs, were reconciling the two books, reading off each name and number to make sure they matched. The clerk may not touch a ballot once it is issued to the voter.
In the case of absentee ballots, they remain sealed in their envelopes until Election Day. The clerk has 13 steps to follow to process each absentee ballot. On Election Day, the absentee ballots are opened and fed into the voting machine.
In a partisan primary where the voter must vote for candidate in one party only, if they make an error the machine will indicate error and the ballot is soiled. They are provided another ballot. A voter may make three attempts to vote correctly.
When the polls close, the ballots are removed from the voting machine and sorted by school districts if there are local races. Otherwise, they are reviewed to find write-in candidates, which are counted by hand. The voting machine issues three identical reports of the number of votes each candidate received. The ballots are hand delivered to Jefferson County Court House along with the envelopes of the absentee ballots and one of the reports from the voting machine. There is a trained chief inspector present during voting and the close of the polls who oversees/runs the process.
Observers (one person per 30 minutes) may watch during voting hours. This entire process is carefully run and very transparent.
Kathleen Townsend
Fort Atkinson
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