By Chris Spangler
Turnout was slow, albeit steady, as School District of Fort Atkinson residents headed to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in the board of education primary election.
On the ballot are six candidates for the School District of Fort Atkinson Board of Education: Matt Loup, Rebecca Van Ess, Robynn Selle, Sam LaMuro, Dale Prisk and Christopher J. Rogers.
For information about them, visit https://fortatkinsononline.com/february-primary-voters-guide-fort-school-board-candidates-share-experience-views/.
Electors may vote for up to two candidates. The four receiving the highest number of votes will advance to the April 5th general election.
Incumbent board members Mark Chaney and Adam Paul are not seeking another three-year term.
As of mid-day, parking was plentiful at the Fort Atkinson Municipal Building, and voters were not experiencing any waiting lines.
“We are just about to hit 300 in-person voters for the day,” Fort Atkinson City Clerk Michelle Ebbert said at 12:40 p.m. “As for absentee votes, we have 309 returned so far. We still have probably at least 150 out there, so we expect about 20 more to be returned today before 8 p.m.”
Ebbert said that it was difficult estimating voter turnout for this election because she has no past February school board primary history to which to refer.
“This is kind of a first trying to estimate turnout,” she said.
Even so, she assured voters that there are plenty of ballots.
“We had a pretty good idea of a ballot count, just by anticipating what I hear and see between social media and the newspaper and kind of the word on the street,” Ebbert said. “You never want to run out of ballots, and based on the count, I think we will be just fine.”
The city clerk said that she had 1,800 ballots at the ready for the primary: 1,200 for in-person voting and 600 for absentee.
She said that about 10 voters arrived at the polls when they opened at 7 a.m., with about 15 at 10:30 a.m.
“There was nobody here between 12 and 12:30,” she said. “We’ll get a little rush between 3 and 5 and then again between 5 and 6, and then after 7 o’clock it gets pretty dead. That’s when we start getting pretty squirrelly.”
The ballot count officially does not start until after the polls close.
“When the ballot is put into the DS200, the ballot machine, it takes a picture of it,” Ebbert explained. “It doesn’t count the ballot, so as of right now, there’s nothing going on in these machines except for a photocopy of each ballot. At 8 o’clock when we close the polls, that’s when the brain of the machine goes through every ballot and starts tallying it. So the more ballots in the machine, the longer it takes to tally the votes.”
Because she expects there to be only a few-hundred ballots in each machine, the tallying should take probably seven or eight minutes, the city clerk estimated.
“Once it’s done, then it will start printing the report. So in the meantime, we’re doing closing duties with an eye (toward) once we start seeing the machine spit out the tape,” she said.
She noted that during the November election, when a couple-thousand ballots were cast, it took a good 15 or 20 minutes before pollworkers starting seeing the printout of results.
“So people get pretty anxious, saying ‘why can’t you tell us the results? It’s 8 o’clock?’ Well, we need to be patient depending on how many ballots are in there,” Ebbert said.
She added that the election results are transmitted through a secure modem in one machine to the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office.
“The key factor is that our machine is on and it has a locked hidden USB port and the county machine has to get on and those two have to communicate,” Ebbert explained. “And if they don’t communicate, there’s nothing leaving this machine and there’s nothing happening at the county. It’s really a secure two-way system.”
Meanwhile, Ebbert reminded readers that the polls are open until 8 p.m. and a photo ID is needed to vote.
She also said electors should mark their calendars for the April 5th general election, when the ballot will include city council, county supervisor and board of education races, as well as a public safety referendum.
Fort Atkinson City Clerk Michelle Ebbert takes care of election paperwork at the table where absentee ballots will be counted after the polls close at 8 p.m.
Pollworker Michelle Whisner registers voter Dustin Hettich as he enters the municipal building gym.
Brett Ketterman receives his ballot from pollworkers Kathy Kakuschke, at right, and Michelle Weihert.
Voters head off to the carrels after receiving their ballots from pollworkers Kathy Kakuschke, at left, and Michelle Weihert.
Sandy Rogers places her ballot in the voting machine. Rogers’ husband, Christopher Rogers, is one of the six candidates running in the primary to advance to the board of education general election in April.
Chris Spangler photos.
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