Though voter turnout was relatively low (it was not as low as it has been in some previous years), the joint election on April 8th went fairly smoothly.
The smaller-scale race was for the Ward 2 seat on the Garretson City Council, as the other seats opening up were won by no contest or will have to be appointed. Though challenger Tony Plahn only captured six votes, it should be remembered that only 35 ballots were cast in that race. This was less than a quarter of registered voters for the City of Garretson’s Ward 2. If the math isn’t adding up in your mind here, there is a reason for that. Matt Jacobson won with 28 votes versus Plahn’s 6 votes and one ballot was left blank, either that particular voter couldn’t decide who to vote for or liked both candidates equally.
As the ballots for the school board election were being counted, initially things looked good for Laura Otis, as she received a lot of the split votes. In early counting she was in the lead and then firmly in second place, but as the votes continued to be tallied she started to trail. There were many votes for Nathan deWit and Chad Stoterau. Approximately forty voters chose to give their votes to a single candidate rather than two. The effect of this gives the single candidate voted for a little more weight in the final tally, and though a few people did this for Otis and deWit, the vast majority of those who did so voted solely for Stoterau, giving him the edge he needed to get to the top spot. In theory, if those forty votes had fallen out differently, it might have been a much tighter race. Business Manager Schweitzer had three provisional ballots he had to confirm with the county auditor as valid. All three were, but did not affect the final results, which were 145 votes for Stoterau, 70 votes for Otis and 131 votes for deWit.
Final school totals: 346 votes from 190 voters, 145 votes for Stoterau, 70 votes for Otis, 131 votes for deWit.
