2004 Year in Review

Election Day is busy for County Clerk's office

Kenneth Huizenga and Randy Nelson, Election Carriers, sort
through voting materials returned from the Precincts.

Tally Judges receive election materials from the precinct election judges.

Deb Workman checks ballots.

Bob Boone from Fidlar Election Company puts the ballots through the counting machine.

Sue Britt, Barb Suehl, Sheila Schipper and Tim Zollinger, watch the election results being tallied on a big screen on the 4th floor public viewing area of the courthouse.

“It was a very long, hectic day,” stated Dan Heusinkveld pertaining to Tuesday, November 2nd election day.

The Whiteside County Clerk's office was very busy all day Tuesday with many calls coming in and people seeking information or answers to their questions in reference to the election.

Clyde precinct was the first to arrive with their ballots at 7:46 p.m. Tuesday night. The last precinct was tallied around 11 p.m.

Two election judges from each precinct, one Republican, one Democrat, bring their supplies and ballots to the County Clerk’s office. A team of tally judges then checks to make sure everything is accounted for in the black suitcases. Election carriers then take the cases, sort the materials, distribute them to the proper teams, and begin putting items away.

The ballots are then checked and counted. Fidlar Election Company is in charge of the actual counting of the ballots. This is done electronically with software designed by Fidlar.

Whiteside County has a total of 39,965 registered voters in their system at this time, which according to Dan “Doesn’t necessarily mean that, that many are legitimate, because the government doesn’t allow us to remove people from our system until a specific time. Some of the registered voters may have moved away or only lived in Whiteside County for a short time, but if they are in contact with government offices such as Driver’s License Facilities or other facilities as such they are asked if they are a registered voter. They may register but won’t necessarily ever vote.”

There were a total of 27,674 valid ballots cast in Whiteside County. This year brought about a new record for absentee ballots with the final count being 1,889.

Editor's Note: I have never covered election results before. I was truly amazed at the number of "behind the scene" people it takes to hopefully make an election go smoothly. As a "reporter-spectator, I was impressed with the scene I witnessed at the courthouse Tuesday night. A round of applause to ALL who help with elections.

by Dawn Zuidema, theCity1.com
November 3, 2004