didate and someone opts not to fill in the circle for that candidate’s name things will go through fine. Otherwise though, “it won’t allow you to make mistakes,” Lunda said of the new machinery. Meanwhile, if you want to try and understand the philosophical divide between urban and more rural America, just ponder the results for the 2020 Presidential election as posted online at the county website—plus St. Croix County for River Falls northern side.

To the northwest in Pierce County, the City on River Falls with just under four times the population of the next-closest county municipality of Prescott registered 4,261 votes total for Joe Biden, alongside with 3,198 votes made for Donald Trump. The closest competitor among the five-party race was the Libertarian party ticket with Jo Jorgensen and Jeremy Cohen, which tallied 183 votes city-wide in River Falls.

Mind you turn out does make a difference. Just to the south in Prescott, Wisconsin, the one-time capital and second biggest settlement in Pierce County registered 1,299 votes for Biden and 1,066 for Trump, with the Republican candidate taking the countryside to the east generally, with a greater overall area but fewer electors. As it stands now, Joe Biden has been declared the winner of the U.S. presidential election, with 290 electoral votes, and counting still going on in the close states of North Carolina and Georgia. So how did it play out locally?

“We had 86 percent of the registered voters,” Prescott City Administrator Jayne Brand said of the 2,416 city residents who voted in the recent election November 3. “Normal elections we don’t even hit the thousands,” she said of turnout. After the polls closed, the Prescott ballots were secured and taken in bag to the county seat at Ellsworth, having heard there might be a recount. Brand’s comments on election turnout overall, meanwhile, were echoed elsewhere in Pierce County, including by Plum City Village Clerk Roxanne Gilles.

“Busier than usual,” she said of the 286 votes cast in the village, adding, “that’s probably twice as high as usual.” Of the voting itself Gilles said that “it went fine,” with extra poll workers on hand due to anticipated high turnout for the blowout election year. Gilles said that the voting machine jammed one time, but that the election staff was able to fix it.

“We didn’t have any problems,” she said of the larger picture. Over in Elmwood Village Clerk Amy Wayne had a similar story.

“Phenomenal,” she said of local turnout, in which 455 people registered prior to the election and 30 registered on the day of. Of those registered to vote in the village as of election day, 426 made use of their right, a cut above what generally happens.

“Immense,” Clerk Wayne went on of the difference between November 3 and past elections. “We’re lucky if we get 300 on a Spring election.” That being said, there were some hiccups. Among them were people who didn’t realize they had to vote in the place they were registered and came to the village hall, without being a Village of Elmwood resident.

“They didn’t understand where they were supposed to be voting,” she said of the few drop-bys who were sent elsewhere. For those interested in what can (and more specifically cannot) be done under Wisconsin law pertaining to elections, there’s a whole chapter in the state statutes, Chapter 12. Required local residency falls under statute 12.13(1)(a), with proof of intent a big factor in subsequent conviction. When it comes to voter turnout by percentage county-wide though, it’s hard to beat Bay City’s performance this November, where nearly all the village’s registered voters cast their ballots.

“We had 100 percent,” Village Clerk Kim Lunda said of turnout November 3, then going on to clarify after checking that it was actually 249 out of the municipality’s 253 registered voters, or 98.4 percent. Of those who voted in Bay City, 161 cast their ballots for the Trump-Pence ticket, while another 75 voters cast theirs for Biden – Harris ticket. The Libertarian party ticket received nine votes in Bay City while the American Solidarity ticket received three votes, and nobody voted for the Constitution Party or a write-in option. In addition, there was one “undervote,” in which someone would have opted to not fill in a choice on a one-candidate race. But what of the overvote, registered county-wide at just 16 to 58 undervotes?

“It could’ve been absentee,” Maiden Rock Village Clerk Shirley Gilles said of the one overvote from the total 89 electors or 97.8 percent of the total registered in the village who opted to use their franchise Tuesday. There were 16 absentee ballots requested in the Village of Maiden Rock and all were returned. In any case though, she said, an “overvote” for more than one choice in the same selection isn’t counted, lest nightmare hanging chads from Florida of elections past come to mind. The vote in Maiden Rock locally was over one-third above normal levels, with Gilles saying that 50 to 60 would be considered a good turnout in a normal spring election.

Nonetheless, despite Trump’s strong showing in rural Pierce County and elsewhere in the countryside, the numbers tipped both state and nationwide in Biden’s favor as the hours turned to days and properly cast absentee ballots were counted, with the Democratic candidate leading Trump in Wisconsin 1,630,570 votes for Biden to 1,610,030 for the President on November 9. Not as reported but pertinent to the result are that 38,415 voted the Libertarian ticket with Jo Jorgensen, 5,253 voted the American Solidarity Parity with Brian Carrol, and a final 5,206 voted the Constitution Party ticket headed by Don Blankenship. The three “other” categories for state voters together totaled 48,874 people. Whether or not they all would have broken for Trump and tipped the state’s electoral vote, it’s worth pondering: what’s the value of one vote?

More than it otherwise would be in a non-electoral college system. To win that kind of national election, all a candidate would have to do is show up in the Twin Cities and Milwaukee— forget Pierce County or the countryside.