MONROE — Turnout was high in Green and Lafayette Counties for the 2026 midterm election, characterized by a blue tsunami nationally. But while election officials had to stay up until early Wednesday morning to finish their work in Lafayette County, Green County had things largely wrapped up by 10:30 p.m. on election night.

“It was really a very smooth election for us,” Green County Clerk Arianna Voegeli said on Thursday, noting that voter turnout hit 74 percent — above average for a midterm race.

And that was the story for the region on a long-anticipated, and hard-fought election night that made history nationwide and in Wisconsin, which elected its first African American governor. Officials said they saw plenty of voter enthusiasm at the polls Tuesday, and also plenty of first-time voters.

Over in Darlington, Lafayette County officials coped with long lines at many of its polling places — lines that persisted well into the evening. And while turnout for Lafayette was high at 71 percent, that wasn’t the only culprit for the long lines, according to County Clerk Carla Jacobson.

“We were ready,” she said. “But the ballots this year, it seemed like it took voters a longer than usual time to fill them out, I’ve heard that from several of our clerks.”

She said that was attributable, in part, to the large number of complex referendum questions on the ballots.

Most of the ballots were cast on a touchscreen machine, but when the lines continued to grow — and to move more slowly — Jacobson said paper ballots were distributed so more people could start the voting process. And thus, the election volunteers and officials ended up having to hand count hundreds of paper ballots, while other votes were counted automatically using the machines.

According to Jacobson, 6,616 voters cast ballots in the midterm election out of about 9,305 registered voters. Of that number, 807 voted absentees. The total vote in Green County was 17,299. Of that number, there were 3,647 absentee votes, which includes mail-in ballots.

Voegeli said her midterm election night was pretty routine, although she added that it was fun for she and staff to handle a call from an overseas voter, who had sent their absentee ballot in over a month ago and wondered if it had arrived in Monroe.

As it turns out, Voegeli was able to verify that the ballot had, in fact, been received and tabulated like all the rest — although they later found out that it had first spent about five weeks languishing at a United States customs office, she said.

“She really wanted to make sure that her vote was counted,” said Voegeli.