Sauk Prairie sets voter turnout record

By Matthew Ryno, Capital Newspapers

Sauk Prairie bucked the county and statewide trend of a lower voter turnout than 2004.

 While Sauk City didn't have more voters than the last presidential election, it also didn't have fewer.

"We had the exact same number, which is odd," said Myra Ballweg, Sauk City Deputy Clerk.

In 2004, 1,754 people voted in Sauk City, the highest turnout that Ballweg said she or Sauk City Village Administrator Vicki Breunig can remember, and the same number of people voted in 2008.

Prairie Du Sac saw the most votes ever in a presidential election since records were kept, at about 1,800 votes, according to Misty Molzof of the village clerk's office.

Outside Sauk Prairie, fewer people turned out to vote in Sauk County than during the last presidential election — even though the turnout nationally is approaching a 40-year high, election experts said.

Sauk County Clerk Beverly Mielke said about 30,632 voters came to the polls — about 66 percent of the eligible voting population. The turnout rate for the last presidential election was 70 percent.

Statewide, about 70 percent of eligible voters came to the polls — a figure slightly below the 2004 poll levels, Government Accountability Board director Kevin Kennedy said.

On the national level, it looks like a record number of eligible voters participated — the highest since at least 1964 according to Curtis Gans, director of the nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

With about 88 percent of votes calculated, about 135 million Americans are expected to have voted in the latest presidential election, said Michael McDonald of George Mason University.

That figure will have easily blown past 2004's 122.3 million, which had been the previous record total.

Kennedy thought polls showing Sen. Barack Obama's lead over Sen. John McCain by double digits in the weeks before the election prompted some voters to stay home.

It is also possible voters watching preliminary estimates trickling in decided not to go to the polls later in the day, he said.

In Baraboo, about 4,600 votes were tallied through the early afternoon Tuesday. That would be on pace to top the 5,500 total votes in the 2004 elections, Baraboo City Clerk Cheryl Giese said.

The voter turnout elsewhere in Sauk County varied by location.

Wisconsin Dells saw an increase of only about 18 voters between this year's election race and 2004, which had about 1,900 voters participating, according to the city clerk's office.

In Spring Green, 908 ballots were cast, or about 90 more than in 2004, a village clerk official said.

Reedsburg totals were not available Wednesday afternoon.

Most villages and cities agreed that absentee ballots were up this year.

Baraboo had about 500 more absentee ballots than in 2004.

Election officials are looking at strategies that worked in this election and considering future changes to make future elections more efficient.

Kennedy told the media that an early voting process might be more efficient than an absentee voting system. That would allow clerks to calculate votes before the election. But it also would require a change in state law.

"There are some that want us to move from an absentee to an early voting process," he said. "What we need to do is see if there's a way to streamline the process."

This year, Baraboo used a two-line voting system and brought in extra volunteers on election day.

Giese reported that small lines formed at 7 a.m. that lasted for about a half hour, but those cleared out by mid afternoon. The system seemed to be a success, she said.