Elections
LISTEN: La Crosse city clerk Elsen on huge turnout with mayor, council and Supreme Court on ballot — but no $1 million checks
It wasn’t quite an April record, but voter turnout in La Crosse had city clerk Nikki Elsen getting a little nervous about having to turn to paper ballots.
“We’re never going to run out (of ballots), where we’re going to turn people away,” Elsen told WIZM, as she was wrapping up a 17-hour day that started around 6 a.m. and finished near midnight. “But it might have turned to, ‘You’re going to vote on a paper ballot,’ and we’re going to have to hand count these the old fashioned way.”
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With the mayor’s race, half the city council and a state Supreme Court seat on the ballot, the city of La Crosse saw a 60.5% turnout among registered voters.
That, compared to the 53% the city had back in 2023 with a state Supreme Court race on the ballot — but no mayor.
Back in 2021, with Mitch Reynolds and Vicki Markussen running for mayor, turnout was just 28.24%.
“It was really higher than what we were expecting,” Elsen said, “what I was expecting anyway. I was preparing for this election thinking it was going to be a similar turnout to the 2023 election.”
Going back to the 1970s, Tuesday’s election wasn’t that close to an April record. That came in 1976, when the city saw 66% turnout. Four years before that, in 1972, La Crosse had 62% turnout. Those were also presidential preference elections.
Elsen said things went later than usual Tuesday night, not just because of high voter turnout, but election workers had to wait until late to begin counting absentee ballots, after a steady stream of voters coming to the polls throughout the day.
Elsen said the highest turnout within the city was in District 7 at over 70%.
“Even with the weather turnout ugly later in the afternoon, we still had lines at some of our polling sites,” Elsen said. “It was steady busy, but manageable most of the day. Between about 4-6 (p.m.), it really picked up.”
Elsen, asked sarcastically about her starting a competition and handing out $1 million checks to random voters in the district that had the highest turnout, denied the claim.
“First of all, I don’t have a million dollars to hand out,” she said laughing. “But, no, I don’t think I’d be doing that.”
