Superior Struggling with Election Costs

With recall elections costing $13.5 million, local election officials say it has been a tough year, and the presidential election is yet to come.

The elections in the city of Superior will have cost more than $83,000 after the presidential election this year. Superior City Clerk Terri Kalan says there is more than $40,000 that was not budgeted for in this year’s elections, mostly because of the recall primary and general election. “Ultimately, it comes out of our general fund. The taxpayers are paying for that. It’s just coming from a different budget transferred into the election budget.”

That $40,000 was added after the recall elections and primaries. One way to save money is cutting the number of polling locations in the city from 10 to five.

Washburn County Clerk Lynn Hoeppner says the election costs so far have been more than $31,400. Up to $12,000 of that was not in this year’s budget. Hoeppner says it has been a hardship for the townships so far. She says it is impossible to keep up with all the work. “Totally impossible. The GAB, which is the state election board, just keeps heaping more and more and more stuff on us. It’s just about impossible for any county clerk to keep up, especially when now we’ve got that 47 day thing where you have to get your ballot out so far in advance for military voters and everything like that.”

The process for November 6th has already started because absentee ballots have been sent out in the mail this week.