Election officials report very strong local voter turnout
Election 2012
Click here for all of the election results with stories, galleries, podcasts and more.
JANESVILLE — Perhaps it was the fact that people had been told the Wisconsin vote would be crucial to the presidential candidates.
Perhaps it was because people believed the talk about this being the vote of a lifetime.
Whatever the reason, voter turnout was reported very high in Janesville and across southern Wisconsin.
A reporter who visited Janesville polling places Tuesday was told of large number of absentee votes and large numbers who registered at the polls.
Janesville City Clerk Jean Wulf at one point said projections were indicating a record turnout.
Janesville and Rock County numbers were not available as The Gazette went to press early Wednesday morning.
Walworth County Clerk Kim Bushey reported 88 percent of registered voters cast ballots, and that does not include those who registered at the polls on Tuesday.
Bushey said the 52,314 total votes in Walworth County was the highest total going back to 2002.
"We've done a lot of elections in 2012, and I think people rose to the occasion. They saw the import of the election, and they turned out," Bushey said.
It was apparent by early afternoon that the volume of voters would delay the count in Janesville.
"It's going to be a late night," Wulf said around 2:40 p.m. It was.
A poll observer from Chicago, Judy Popovich, said at about 6:30 p.m. that the voters she saw at Madison Elementary School in Janesville impressed her.
"It's kind of inspiring to see people come in after working all day, and they've got their kids in tow, and the kids are hungry, and still they come," she said.
related STORIES
- Janesville man ponders state ...
By GAZETTE STAFF 05/05/13
Nov 9, 2012 at 1:38 p.m.
Suggest removal
Governor praises pension reform bill by T. Herdt, Aug. 31, 2012
Sacramento - On overwhelming bipartisan votes, lawmakers on Friday sent to Gov. Jerry Brown a comprehensive reform of public pensions in California that is designed to end abuses such as spiking, prevent high-wage earners from accumulating $100,000 pensions and save state and local governments about $50 billion over the next 30 years. "Pensions were not made to be a way to make people wealthy, but to ensure security at retirement age," said Sen. Gloria Negrette McLeod, D-Chino. The bill, AB 340, caps the amount of compensation subject to pension calculations at $110,000, increases retirement ages, and lowers pension formulas for state and local government workers hired after Jan. 1. It also requires all public workers, new and current, to pay at least half the annual contributions that are made into their pension funds. It also seeks to end so-called pension "spiking" by requiring that pensions be calculated on the average compensation earned during an employee's final three years and prohibiting the use of cashed-in vacation time, bonuses and other non-recurring pay in calculating pension benefits.
The bill, which Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign, also bars the practice known as "double-dipping," by requiring that retired government employees stay off the payroll for at least six months before being allowed to come back as part-time workers. Brown praised the Legislature's action, calling the bill "the biggest rollback of public pensions in California history. This sweeping pension reform package will save tens of billions of taxpayer dollars and make the system more sustainable for the long term." An analysis by the California Public Employees Retirement System estimates the changes will save state and local governments from $42 billion to $55 billion over the next three decades. Most of the savings would come when those hired beginning next year start to retire, but more immediate savings will be realized as local governments negotiate higher employee contributions to their pensions. The bill says the contributions must be split 50-50 between employers and employees by 2015. If that level isn't reached through collective bargaining by then, the bill would give local governments the ability to achieve that level by declaring a bargaining impasse. Nearly all state government workers already pay half.
Nov 8, 2012 at 8:18 p.m.
Suggest removal
godishere: what does Washington state, Washington DC, Hawaii, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, have in common? Among them they require a photo ID and President Obama won each state. Your comment is a big reason Republicans lost the election, they are uninformed and delusional.
Nov 8, 2012 at 10:46 a.m.
Suggest removal
We Americans will never know. Voter fraud was never an issue, or was it? Obama Lost in Every State With Photo ID Law
November 7 | Was the election stolen? Remember all those lawsuits by Democrats demanding that any voter identification laws be repealed. Well, now we know why they filed them. They needed to steal the vote in certain key states so that Obama could be reelected.
Curiously, Obama lost in every state that requires a photo ID to be produced before voting. A list of closely contested state elections with no voter ID, which narrowly went to Obama include: Minnesota (10), Iowa (6), Wisconsin (10), Nevada (6), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5) and Pennsylvania (20). This amounts to a total of 66 electoral votes. When added to Romney’s total of 205 electoral votes, that would give Romney 271 electoral votes, enough votes to win even without Ohio or Florida.
Romney also likely had the states of Florida and Ohio stolen from him, which don’t require photo IDs. Ohio requires a non-photo ID. Would a library card do? Florida “requests” a photo ID, but doesn’t require it. So what happens if they request a photo ID and the illegal alien Haitian doesn’t have one? Do they just count the vote anyway?
Before you post a comment, consider this:
Note: GazetteXtra.com does not condone or review every comment. Read more in our User Policy AgreementPost Comment
Commenting requires registration.