What’s La Crosse’s favorite dog? Cast mock ballot Tuesday at city’s voter education event

If you want to try and rig the election on La Crosse’s favorite dog or vacation destination, Tuesday’s the day to try.

The La Crosse city clerk’s office is hosting a voter education event from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Black River Beach community center.

On hand will be some of the voting machines, where people can take part in the voting process with a mock ballot and election that will have questions like

• What’s your favorite candy bar?,
• What’s your favorite dog?
• Best vacation destination.

There will be six in all city clerk Nikki Elsen said last week on La Crosse Talk PM and she said she’d be back to give out the results of those ballots.

“Basically what we’re doing is we wanna just be available to La Crosse citizens who have questions or want to learn about the voting process, leading up to the fall elections,” Elsen said. “We don’t want anybody to shy away from voting because they’ve never voted before, they don’t know what to expect, they don’t know what to do. We’re gonna be there to answer those questions and prepare people leading up to the fall election.”

Along with voter education, you can also simply get started on the voting process, as there is a primary Aug. 9 for things like the 3rd Congressional District primary between four Democratic candidates looking to take retiring US House Rep. Ron Kind’s place.

“So, if you (have) questions on voter registration or need assistance with registration, we’ll be there for that — voter ID,” Elsen said. “Maybe you don’t know where you vote and we’ll have information on absentee voting accessibility. If you’re interested in working the polls, we’ll have some information on that.”

As well as participating in the mock election of La Crosse favorites, those who visit can check out the machinery.

“We’re also gonna have the machines that are used at the polls on election day available,” Elsen said. “If somebody wants to take a look at ’em, we’ll have some demo ballots they can use — kind of a fake election demo ballot.

“So, we’ll have the DS 200 Tabulator. We’re gonna have our express vote machine, which is the accessible voting equipment. If anybody wants to come up, take a look at them, get some information, talk with us, we are there for that.”

Elsen added they’ll have another voter education event in October, heading into the Nov. 8 election.