Nov. 4, 2020 4:55a
(WGTD)---State representatives Tod Ohnstad and Tip McGuire beat their Republican challengers yesterday. But the results weren't known until well after midnight.
That's when the City of Kenosha finished counting some 30,000 absentee ballots. Wisconsin is one of a few states that prohibits election workers from processing ballots until the day of the election.
To get the job done, the city closed the Municipal Building Tuesday to all but election workers. Extra help was brought in from other departments. Three high-speed counters were purchased.
City Clerk/Treasurer Matt Krauter--with a police escort--left the Municipal Building at 3:20 this morning to deliver election drives and other material to Kenosha County's tabulation center at Highways 50 and 45.
Mayor Antaramian, who helped guide the process from start to finish, said the process for the most part went well. It's just that it takes awhile to count 30,000 paper ballots. "We've never had a situation where so many people vote absentee because of the virus and plus just the situation for easy access for the public," Antaramian said early Wednesday morning.
Antaramian would like to see the legislature change state law to give election workers a day or two head start in counting absentee ballots. The City of Milwaukee ran into the same problem.
The completion of the absentee ballot count in the city revealed that Kenosha supported Joe Biden for president by a nearly two-to-one margin.
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