Of the more than 3.5 million registered voters in Wisconsin, more than 173,000 are in our region. That region includes eight counties stretching from Marathon to Iron County.
While we are seeing record early voting in our region and throughout Wisconsin, fewer than half of registered voters have cast their ballot.
Meaning there is still plenty of people that could show up to vote on Election Day.
Rhinelander City Clerk Val Foley said she’s expecting a large voter turnout. If that does happen, it could take longer for election workers to count and tally votes.
“All of the ballots get counted on Election Day there isn’t any pre-count or ahead of time. Every body’s ballot gets counted at the polls so they will make an attempt to the absentees in in between in-person voters on Election Day,” said Foley. “If that doesn’t get all done by 8:00 p.m. we’ll have to probably continue to count until we get all the ballots in and then we do the tallies and the canvas.”
Once all the votes are tallied, they’re sent to the County Clerk.
Oneida County Clerk Tracy Hartman says she posts election results as they come in.
“The clerks are going it to take their time. They’re going to make sure that everything is correct before calling it in. So if you’re not seeing results, it’s not that we’re not going to be getting them. It’s just that they’re going to make sure everything is correct before they call them in so be patient with us,” said Hartman.
It’s important to note that the results shared on election night are never official results.
The day after the election, municipal clerks bring all their election supplies to the County Office. This includes ballots and tally sheets.
Then the County Clerk holds what is called a board of canvass.
“We are hoping if everything goes well to start the board of canvass Friday morning at 9:00. The board of canvass will go through that was brought in and make certain that there wasn’t a miscommunication on Election night and that the numbers are actually what shows on the tally sheet and once we’ve been able to go through all of that, and the poll books all add up and the same number of voters voted. That there are ballots then those results are made final,” said Hartman.
The bottom line is you definitely won’t get official election results on election night and you may not get unofficial results that night either.
It all comes down to how many people decide to vote.
WXPR will be closely monitoring election results as they come in. We’ll be brining you live updates on air and online on Election Night.
