WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood released a statement on Thursday regarding how a ballot shortfall was handled in two Wausau wards during the Spring election.
“The Marathon County Clerk’s Office was notified Tuesday evening that City of Wausau Wards 1 and 2 at Pilgrim Church were running short of ballots due to high voter turnout. Additional ballots
for each ward were printed and delivered to the polling location,” read the statement. “Despite following printing procedures that were previously tested and verified, the ballot tabulator would not accept the newly printed ballots. As a result, a new batch of ballots was printed on a different type of paper and delivered to the polling location. It was verified that these ballots could be read by the tabulator.”
You can read the statement in its entirety with the PFD attached to this story.
RELATED: Some Wausau polling locations ran out of ballots
According to the Clerk’s office, they printed ballots for up to a 45% voter turnout, which is typical for a spring election that doesn’t have any state or national races attached to it. Voter turnout in Wausau was 27% by 4 PM.
Trueblood emphasized that no voters were turned away and everyone who wanted to cast a ballot was able to. Though the process became cumbersome for some due to the vote-counting machines not reading some of the new ballots properly. She explained that those ballots were transferred by two chief elections inspectors through a process that included verification to ensure the voter’s choice remained intact.
Voter turnout for Tuesday’s election sits at just over 32%. According to Trueblood, more than 26,200 ballots were cast. Results remain unofficial until they are canvassed on April 11th.
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