Nearly 83% of Clayton County registered voters cast ballots in Nov. 3 general election

By Audrey Posten, Times-Register

Nearly 83 percent of registered voters in Clayton County cast ballots in the Nov. 3 general election, according to unofficial results released by the Clayton County Auditor’s Office. Of the 9,636 voters, nearly half (4,750) voted absentee, while 4,886 cast their ballots on Election Day.

The turnout was a little higher than anticipated, but not much, said Clayton County Auditor Jennifer Garms.

“The last two presidential elections had approximately 80 percent turnout and 9,200 voters each,” she said.

Iowa, as a whole, broke turnout records in 2020, with more than 1,697,000 people voting, easily surpassing the previous state record of 1,589,951 in 2012. Secretary of State Paul Pate’s office said more than one million Iowans voted absentee, which was another new record. Seventy-six percent of all registered voters in Iowa participated in the general election—one of the highest turnout rates in the nation.

Garms noted Election Day went relatively smoothly thanks, in part, to the increase in absentee voting and the ability to start processing those votes on the Monday before Election Day.

“This freed up time on Election Day to focus on the polling places and address reporting,” she explained. “Due to the record turnout, there were polling places that we needed to run additional paper ballots to late in the evening. With our ExpressVote machines, there is never a time when a voter is unable to cast a ballot on Election Day.”

While the COVID-19 pandemic drove more people to vote absentee this year, it also greatly impacted the county’s ability to secure pollworkers to work the election.

“We have to maintain party balance at all sites which can also cause issues if pollworkers are not willing to work or travel. Many of our regular pollworkers declined to work this election, but fortunately the Secretary of State’s Office had launched a pollworker recruitment site. This site was advertised on social media and brought in many workers for us,” Garms said. “We strived to have a certain amount assigned to each site in case someone had to relieve themselves of duties at the last minute. This situation occurred many times and we were fortunate to have a roster of great pollworkers to work the long hours to ensure that our election process was safe and secure.”

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Although the electoral college result for U.S. President has now been called for Democrat Joe Biden and his vice presidential running mate Kamala Harris, who on Saturday surpassed the 270 votes needed to win election, Iowa voters supported incumbent Republican president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence. Iowans gave them 53 percent of the vote (896,190), compared to 45 percent (757,753) for Biden and Harris. Clayton County voters overwhelmingly supported the Trump ticket, which received 6,105 votes, compared to 3,339 for Biden/Harris.

In the race for U.S. Senate, Republican Joni Ernst held on to her seat, winning 51.8 percent of the vote, while Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield picked up 45.2 percent. Clayton County voters cast 5,844 ballots in favor of Ernst and 3,433 for Greenfield.

Republican Ashley Hinson has claimed victory in the District 1 race for the U.S. House of Representatives. She received 51.3 percent of the vote total, and incumbent Abby Finkenauer, who was seeking her second term, had 48.7 percent. In Clayton County, votes fell along the same lines as the senate race, with Hinson earning 5,894 votes and Finkenauer 3,589.

At the state level, Republican Mike Klimesh won the bid for State Senate District 28, a seat that has been held by Republican Michael Breitbach, who’s retiring. Klimesh got 19,627 votes district-wide, compared to 11,782 for Democrat Matt Tapscott. Clayton County voters supported Klimesh with 5,957 of those. Tapscott tallied 3,589 votes in the county.

The State House District 55 race was tight, but not as close as the 2018 match-up between the two candidates. Incumbent Michael Bergan, a Republican, defeated Democrat Kayla Koether 8,886-7,462. In Clayton County, voters narrowly supported Bergan, who picked up 689 votes, while Koether received 595.

Republican Anne Osmundson has handily won re-election in State House District 56, earning 10,366 votes over 4,615 for Democrat Angela Reed. Clayton County voters backed Osmundson with 5,525 votes and gave 2,396 to Reed.

In the only contested county race, Republican Ray Peterson was re-elected to the board of supervisors. Votes for him totaled 6,169, compared to 2,949 for Lester Simons, a Democrat. In three uncontested races, voters selected Democrat Jennifer Garms for another term as county auditor, Republican Michael Tschirgi for four more years as sheriff and Republican Zach Herrmann to fill the remaining two years of the term for county attorney.

The non-partisan election for Clayton County Soil and Water Conservation District Commissioner saw Robert Sass (4,114 votes), Tina Troester (3,615) and Gerry Ommen (3,179) win three open seats. Peter Kerns received 2,367 votes, Mary Collins 2,135 and Charlie Carroll 1,904.

In the County Agricultural Extension Council election, which is another non-partisan race, four open seats went to Julie Bergan (4,662 votes), Ben Wikner (4,538), Aaron Hamann (4,189) and Emily Amundson (4,023). Cynthia Petsche received 3,465 votes.

Most Clayton County voters did not want the state to call a constitutional convention to propose amendments to the Iowa Constitution, with 6,022 people voting “no” for the measure, while 1,814 said “yes.” Statewide, voters also said “no,” with 971,520 against and 407,944 for a convention.