La Crosse County election officials prep for possible recount
LA CROSSE, Wis. (WKBT) — Election day is over, but candidates can still have the chance to challenge the vote count.
County election officials are gearing up for a possible recount of last week’s election results.
“Once it’s requested we have to get on it right away, so you can’t sit there and prepare, because you just don’t have 40 people show up overnight to do a recount,” said La Crosse County Clerk Ginny Dankmeyer.
The President has made comments about a recount, but our smaller local races have that same potential.
“The 32nd district is one that could potentially be a recount. It involves all of La Crosse County, Vernon County, part of Monroe County and part of Crawford County. So it could have to be the expenses of all of them together,” said Dankmeyer.
The bill for a recount has a price tag upwards of $30,000 to $40,000.
“A lot of that is just the wages of the people to bring in to get this done in a set time period,” said Dankmeyer.
Dankmeyer says the turn around for recounts can be quick, but this election season, she isn’t worried about not having enough tabulators.
“We’re just prepping by calling the poll workers who we know worked a recount in the past, or are familiar with working the polls,” said Dankmeyer.
Dankmeyer says recounts aren’t always common. But just this year in April there was a recount issued for a supervisory district. Other recounts have also occurred frequently over the last four years.
“With the bigger elections you don’t see recounts often, because there’s so many votes it’s usually not that close that it goes to a recount, but we can’t say that anymore because several elections here have gotten close,” said Dankmeyer.
She said even though recounts are a lot of work and require a lot of people, they’re worth showing the security of the election process.
“For the people who say there’s fraud in the elections, or there was ballot dumping, or this happened, or dead people were voting. This assures the public, I’ve been involved with how many recounts, and every time the recount has come out the way it should,” said Dankmeyer.
Dankmeyer says deadlines mean everything for recounts. If Dan Kapanke wants a recount for the 32-nd district seat, the request for the recount would have to be put in by Friday at 5 P.M. When it comes to the Presidential Election, the last Wisconsin county to turn in their canvas is on November 17th, so the campaign has until the next day to request and pay for that recount.
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