91 percent vote in Brown County

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- The 2004 presidential race, local school boards and city councils and a few state representatives brought Brown County voters out of the woodwork for Tuesday night's election.

The county saw a 91.4 percent voter turnout and a total of 13,937 votes were recorded by staff in the Brown County Auditor-Treasurer's Office by midnight.

Brown County Auditor-Treasurer Marlin Helget said he thought the turnout matched earlier predictions, since roughly 90 percent of the eligible voters went to the polls. Helget said that voters typically respond more favorably during a presidential election year but also thought that this year was higher than normal for a presidential election.

The election process saw few glitches since all the county's voting machines functioned properly. However, the totals released by the Brown County Auditor-Treasurer's Office at midnight were not yet official since the paper ballots that were used to remake faulty ballots were not scanned but were reported to the Minnesota Secretary of State.

Two incumbent Brown County commissioners - Charles Guggisberg and Richard Seeboth, who both represent all or part of New Ulm - were on the ballot unopposed and were re-elected. So, too, were the five board members of the Brown County Soil and Water Conservation District.

Ballots were in somewhat short supply in Brown County as four Brown County townships were short of ballots and printed more. Those ballots had to be counted separately since they were not readable by the county's optical ballot scanner.

Milford Township was the first precinct to report at 8:32 p.m. Sigel Township and the town of Cobden followed shortly at 8:45 p.m.

One polling place had used 63 percent of its ballots by 1 p.m. An election judge from the precinct that included Martin Luther College said the college saw 295 new registrants for the election, which was comparable to the last presidential election four years ago, he said.

The First Precinct in New Ulm's First Ward saw 800 voters and 170 new registrations on Tuesday.

The First Precinct of New Ulm's Third Ward was the last precinct to report to the Brown County courthouse at 10:50 p.m. The last ballot was scanned at 11:50 p.m.

"We're still missing the paper ballots," Helget said. "They'll be on our total that we report to the Secretary of State. We had some faulty ballots and some remakes."

Brown County had a total of 1,002 absentee ballots for this year's election, but staff in the Auditor-Treasurer's office did not have any information on the total number of new voter registrations were made in Brown County on Tuesday.

Brown County election results:

* Commissioner Dick Seeboth (Dist. 1)

* Commissioner Charles Guggisberg (Dist. 3)

* SWCD Dist.1- Richard Schroepfer

* SWCD Dist. 2 - Ervin Windschitl

* SWCD Dist. 4 - Jack Vogel