In this election, that reality left poll workers who were already exhausted by a surge of on-site registrants to count absentee ballots into the wee hours of Wednesday morning in some municipalities. If it weren't for those poll workers, we wouldn't have elections in this state. Henry, who has increased training for poll workers, hired 1,800 people for election night and said things went smoothly overall. Milwaukee County, Madison and Green Bay all have the electronic systems. The punch-card ballots are much cheaper to produce than those for the electronic machines.
None used here is designed like the infamous Palm Beach, Fla., punch-card ballots.
In 1994, a Republican candidate for state Assembly in northeastern Wisconsin blamed his primary election loss on 1,050 ballots that were rejected. A few communities, including Kenosha, use a fourth method - lever machines. All have their pitfalls. County officials, who pay for ballots and are responsible for double-checking municipal vote totals, endorse standardization of voting technology. We are at the mercy of municipalities.