Local voter turnout nears 95 percent; Kurtz reflects on historic process

Rock County’s voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election was 94.94 percent, a record as far as chief election official Ashley Kurtz can recall.
“This has been the highest voter turnout since I’ve been with Rock County,” Kurtz said. “The next closest was 2012 where we saw a 94.44 percent turnout.”
She said Rock County was the second county in the state to be 100 percent reported on Election Night, and she and her election workers left the courthouse by 10 p.m.
“As far as the polling places were concerned, everything went well there, too,” she said. “There were lines at times and it was pretty steady all day long.”
She said the mail ballot polling places had 220 voters, which she said is unheard of.  “I’m not sure we’ve ever come close to surpassing 100 before,” she said “Of those 220 voters, 96 of them were voters who registered on Election Day.”
She said the number of people voting in person was 2,283. 
“While we still have to accept ballots that may come postmarked in the mail tomorrow (Tuesday), our final accepted absentee count was 1,181 and accepted mail ballot count was 1,804 for a total of 2,985 ballots,” she said.
“That makes for a total turnout of 5,268 voters.”
With Election Day now in the rearview mirror, Kurtz said she’s pleased with Rock County’s processes.
“All in all, I think that everything went really well in Rock County,” she said. “It was a crazy couple of weeks leading up to Election Day but all of the work we completed ahead of time paid off on Election night.” 
She said the 2020 election was significant for many reasons, but she said the most important message to voters is that everyone who properly submitted ballots had their votes counted in Rock County.
“There’s been a lot of hype on social media about ballots that were supposedly ‘lost’ according to the Secretary of State ballot tracker website. This is NOT true,” Kurtz said.
“The ballot tracker will never say that a ballot is lost. It may say that it can’t find the record and that’s simply because the information entered doesn’t match the entry in the voter registration system.”
For example, if a driver’s license number is the only identifying number in the voter registration system and the last four digits of a social security number is entered in the ballot tracker, it won’t be found. 
Kurtz said there could be instances where a shortened first name rather than a full name is entered, or there could be spelling errors. 
“We just really encourage everyone to call our office if they are unable to locate their ballot and we can walk them through it,” she said.
 Kurtz also points out that each state sets its own election laws.
"And while that can be incredibly frustrating, it’s simply how it’s done,” she said.
“Thankfully, in Minnesota, we are able to begin processing absentee ballots 14 days prior to Election Day and mail ballots seven days prior. Had we had to wait until Election Day to begin opening and processing the 2,985 ballots we received in the mail, we would have likely been counting ballots days after the election, too.”
 
Election results
Rock County’s only locally contested race was in Hills where Keith Elbers was reelected as mayor.
He fended off challenger Arlen Leenderts with a 192-161 tally. There were 13 write-in votes for mayor.
Also in Hills, voters were instructed to choose two names for council, but Ross Metzger was the only candidate who filed.
Metzger received 345 votes, and there were 119 write-ins for the other open seat on the council. Stacen Burger’s name was written on 90 ballots, with the remaining write-ins receiving five or fewer votes.
In Steen, voters had to write in names for mayor and two open council seats.
Mel VanBatavia received 43 of the 59 write-in votes.
Mark Kruger (15 write-in votes) and Marlin Elbers (14) received the most votes for the open council seats. But they were followed closely by Lynette Woelber, whose name was written in on 13 ballots.
Martin Township voters answered yes to two ballot questions: Should the town board appoint its clerk? And should the town board appoint its treasurer? The measures passed 152-33.
Bill Weber and Joe Schomacker were both re-elected to their respective Minnesota Senate and House of Representatives seats, and GOP incumbent Jim Hagedorn squeaked out a narrow victory over DFL challenger Dan Feehan for another term in Minnesota’s District 1 seat in Congress.
Joe Biden has been declared the next president of the United States, defeating incumbent Donald Trump, 279 electoral votes to 214.
The vote count was 76,162,943 (50.6 percent) to 71,529,986 (47.6%) as of Monday with three states still counting ballots, but 98 percent complete.
But if Rock County voters had their way, Trump would have been the clear winner.
Sixty-eight percent of Rock County voters (3,578) chose Trump compared with nearly 30 percent (1,554) who voted for Biden.
For other election data and to see how Rock County voters turned out for other candidates, see the Minnesota Secretary of State website, electionresults.sos.state.mn.us.