GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Election day in Green Bay wasn’t without some road bumps.
Some Green Bay voters endured a power outage — while others had to wait for their polling place to even open.
Add to that a big spring turnout in the city, with over 8,400 absentee ballots counted at Green Bay Central Count.
The power outages in the area affected three polling locations on the west side of Green Bay.
The city had generators on standby for the polling machines, which have backup batteries, but they didn’t need to use them. Polling continued uninterrupted during the outages.
Christ of the Bay Lutheran Church, a polling location on the city’s east side, opened 22 minutes late Tuesday morning.
City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys says the city chose not to pursue a court order to keep that site open past the normal 8 p.m. closing.
“These judicial orders are actually hard to get approved and the time, the reason, did not, in our analysis, we felt it did not rise to the level of trying to initiate a judicial order, it really needs to be something fairly catastrophic for a judge to say yes to it,” she said during a 6:30 p.m. update on the polls.
Jeffreys said that the city spoke with two voters who were unable to cast their ballot when they planned to.
“They weren’t terribly happy, they did also convey some concerns that they had about the way things went, which I will address with the chief inspectors, and also with training, to be honest with you, in the future for the chief inspectors next year,” Jeffreys explained.
The city finished counting ballots at 9:02 p.m. Tuesday.
