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Voter turnout high in Monroe, state
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MONROE - More than 3,500 voters showed up to the polls in Monroe on Tuesday, echoing the high-voter-turnout trend seen throughout Green County and the state of Wisconsin.

City Clerk Carol Stamm said the total for the last presidential primary was 2,135, or 1,400 less than this week's election. She said the reason behind a large turnout was most likely because of all the races relevant to people locally and at the state level in addition to a presidential primary.

Throughout the day, operations at the Monroe polls went relatively uninterrupted. Stamm said early in the day, the ballot tabulation machine had failed to count ballots correctly and had to be fixed, bringing a delay. However, because of the new law requiring voters to present identification and the likelihood of large numbers due to local races like the close mayoral election, Stamm said the city recruited more volunteers to work throughout the day.

"Because I expected larger turnout and with the voter ID law, I did have more people working than usual," Stamm said. "It went pretty smoothly; we only had minor issues."

As polls closed at 8 p.m. there were only two people left to cast ballots, mostly because they had walked in to register before they voted late in the day. Ballots did run short because of the high volume of voters as the day was ending, but Stamm said everyone was able to vote.

"One or two people had to wait while a few ballots were printed off at the Courthouse," she said. "Nobody was disenfranchised; everybody got to cast their vote."

In Brodhead, city clerk Teresa Withee said polls were "extremely busy." Issues arose when a number of voters had to recast their ballots after incorrectly marking more than one candidate for president, but Withee noted that though a line formed as a result, other municipalities encountered similar problems throughout the day. A total of 1,036 voters showed up to decide the fate of the presidential primary candidates as well as the local school district in the city.

"It was higher than what we thought it was going to be," Withee said.

Green County Clerk Mike Doyle said the turnout was roughly 50 percent within the county, 10 percent higher than expected at the state level. However, he added that because each primary is unique, it is hard to determine the reason for the turnout number.

"There's really no way to compare it," Doyle said. "Every election is independent."

At the state level, unofficial results showed nearly 2.1 million residents of Wisconsin voted in the presidential primary, the most of any state primary since 1972. While officials had cited a possible

40-percent turnout, roughly

47 percent turned up at the polls.