Washington Co., Wi – There were long lines at polling places across Washington County, WI, on the first day of in-person absentee voting for the November 5, 2024, General Election.
Many clerks said they were a little surprised at the large turnout and the consistency of voters throughout the day.
Tammy Tennies is clerk in the Village of Slinger. “We had 302 voters. Long lines and over an hour wait,” she said.
That wait time was a bit of an anomaly as Tennies said she “never had anyone on Election Day wait over 20 minutes.”
The day was unique in that, according to Tennies, the system used for in-person absentee voting (IPAV) is not what is used on Election Day.
“There were possibly ten’s of thousands of voters throughout WI and all the election officials trying to process them through WISVOTE,” she said.
“WISVOTE is not set up for that as we all saw yesterday.”
In the Village of Slinger the system did not go down, however, there were reports about other municipalities that experienced WISVOTE lock up or go down completely.
Tennies said Wednesday, October 23, “the system seems faster, but fewer people are voting right now.”
In the Town of Trenton, 370 people voted on Tuesday, October 22. “Coupled with 630 some absentee ballots we roughly have 971 who voted so far,” said town chairman Mike Lipscomb.
The Town of Trenton has an estimated 4,600 residents, and about 3,200 voters.
In the Town of West Bend, clerk Julie Ihlenfeld, said they had 163 people vote as of noon on Tuesday. “I knew it would be busy…. I didn’t know it would be this busy,” she said. “This is great people are coming out.”
The Town of West Bend has about 3,600 registered voters. “We had a line when we opened the door this morning at 8 a.m. Sometimes the line inside went halfway down the hallway. At 10 a.m. the line went out the door,” she said.
The Town of West Bend had a poll worker at Cedar Community on Tuesday where 200 residents voted.
In the City of West Bend, WI, officers were swinging traffic in the parking lot. One voter who stopped around 3 p.m. said he was coming back after he was told the wait would be an hour and a half.
Below is a list compiled by Washington County of in-person voting hours through Sunday, November 3, 2024.
