Washington County saw a big turnout at the various precincts Tuesday night. According to Washington County Auditor, Dan Widmer, the large turnout led to some issues in Kalona.
He says that by 7pm the Kalona precinct had run out of ballots. He shares they then had to make copies and due to the fact those ballots couldn’t be scanned, results from the precinct came in late because the ballots needed to be counted by hand.
Voter turnout in the County was 76% compared to the 2008 presidential election where that figure was around 70%. Widmer notes that’s due in part to the over 5,000 people who decided to vote absentee this year, around 1/3rd of the registered voters. He attributes that to the attention absentee voting was given on the national scale.