City elections eventful in Waukon; Voters mainly stay the course in most other area communities

Area voters in the Tuesday, November 5 city elections chose to avoid much change for a majority of the elected positions on this year's ballots. A couple incumbent candidates did see their tenures voted to an end, with a late write-in challenge and some equipment difficulties in the City of Waukon election still leaving some races unsettled.

WAUKON ELECTION
A full week after the officially uncontested city elections in Waukon last Tuesday, the complete results remain uncertain. As of Tuesday morning, November 12, two of the four city government races appear to be fully resolved. Mayor Loren Beneke defeated write-in challenger Keith Schroeder by a 378-269 margin and Ward 1 Councilman Steve Wiedner defeated write-in challenger Jason Dahlstrom, 161-85.
Write-in candidate Don Steffens has been declared the winner of Waukon's Ward 3 Council seat, defeating incumbent Councilman John Ellingson by a 102-82 result, but Ellingson has requested and been granted a recount in that election. That recount has not yet been scheduled, but is expected to be conducted later this week.
Allamakee County Auditor Denise Beyer requested an administrative recount for Waukon's Ward 2 due to the closeness of some of the election races and an equipment malfunction at that ward polling site. Beyer said that after the polls closed Tuesday, election workers were unable to "close out" the election machine at the Ward 2 site, apparently due to a malfunction in the vote counting machine's clock and calendar.
Beyer said that she was able to print out the election results from the machine's memory card, but by that time the election workers had already conducted a hand count of the ballots. Beyer went on to say that the summary tape printed by the machine did not precisely match the results of the hand count conducted by the poll workers because during the hand count the election workers were allowed to count write-in votes where the voter had not marked the box indicating the selection of a write-in candidate; the machine does not count such votes.
Following the administrative recount held Friday, November 8, the results of the election for the at-large council seat currently held by Joe Cunningham showed that Cunningham received 312 votes while write-in challenger Darrold Brink received 304 votes. However, with 628 votes cast in that race, neither candidate received more than 50% of the votes cast. Waukon's City Code requires a run-off election in such cases of no simple majority, so that election has been scheduled for Tuesday, December 3. However, Brink has also requested a recount of the votes cast in Wards 1 and 3 for the at-large council seat, and that recount was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, November 12.
Patty Fosaaen and Revelyn Lonning were both re-elected to the Board of Trustees for Veterans Memorial Hospital, receiving 509 votes and 566 votes, respectively.

Update: Both of the remaining recounts were completed Tuesday, November 12. The recount requested by Darrold Brink for Wards 1 and 3, which began at around 2:30 Tuesday afternoon, did not significantly change the results of the election for the at-large Council seat. Joe Cunningham remained the leader with 311 votes, topping Brink's 299 votes, but did not earn more than 50% of the total votes (16 ballots were either votes for other write-in candidates or unvoted), so the runoff election scheduled for Tuesday, December 3 will go forward as planned. The results of the election for the Ward 3 City Council seat following the recount held Tuesday evening at the request of incumbent candidate John Ellingson, with Ellingson losing the election to write-in candidate Don Steffens 102-82.

OTHER ELECTIONS
In the Lansing election, incumbent City Council members Rebecca Conway (126 votes), Ross Kolsrud (132)and Patrick Wagner (134) retained their seats, while Deb Volker lost her seat, receiving only 86 votes to be edged out by David Darling's 121 votes and Dick Roeder's 105 votes. Mike Brennan, who ran unopposed, was elected back into the mayor seat with 133 votes after not seeking re-election four years ago following the end of his initial mayoral tenure in 2009.

In the Harpers Ferry results, incumbents swept the board as Mayor Jerry Valley easily defeated challenger Karyla McCune for that seat by a 75-32 margin. Both of the incumbent City Council candidates, Donald Gibson and Thomas Boots, also retained their seats by garnering respective vote totals of 84 and 61, topping challengers Nancy Walleser with 49 votes received and fellow challenger Glenn McCune who received 18 votes.

In the New Albin City election, all three candidates on the ballot retained their seats on the City Council. Lori Darling, whose seat was up for re-election, received 40 votes; Debra Stantic, also up for re-election, received 37 votes; and Joel Monroe, whose seat was not up for re-election but who was on the ballot due to some previous tenure eligibility confusion, and who could have taken one of the seats that was up for re-election had he won, retained his own seat by finishing behind the other two incumbent candidates with 31 votes. Mayor Barry Stahl was re-elected with 54 votes, as was City Treasurer Diane Erb with 59 votes.

In the Waterville election, Mayor Dave Monserud, who ran unopposed for re-election, received 100 percent of the 23 votes cast in his race. Declared candidates Robbie Burrett (22 votes), Kurt Rathbun (22), Bob Ryan (23) and Mark VanderKolk (26) won election to the City Council, along with write-in candidate Joe Weipert, who tallied 17 votes to fill the fifth seat on the Waterville City Council.