I had a new experience today. My schedule is looking like I won’t be able to make it to the polls for the primary election on February 21st, so I went by City Hall to cast an in-person absentee ballot yesterday. The only races on the ballot are for the State Department of Public Instruction and the West Bend School Board. The School Board primary is moot because one of the candidates dropped out rendering the primary unnecessary, but it’s on the ballot anyway because she dropped out too late to change it.

Last night I attended the School Board candidate forum hosted by the Common Sense Citizens of Washington County. Two of the DPI candidates also showed up and made their pitch. After attending that, I changed my mind about how I wanted to vote.

In Wisconsin, a voter can change their absentee ballot as many times as they want as long as they do it before the window for in-person absentee voting closes. I went back to City Hall today and changed my vote. The clerk was perfectly delightful about the inconvenience I imposed on her. I had to tear my ballot from yesterday to render it invalid. Then I went through the process again to fill out my new ballot. It was easy as could be.

I queried the clerk as to turnout and the clerk indicated that my ballot represents about 20% of all votes cast in West Bend so far for the primary election. As one would expect, turnout will be very low for this primary election, so every vote has an extraordinarily disproportionate weight.

Go vote!