Nearly 76 percent of Minnesota’s eligible voters turned out Tuesday to cast ballots in the general election.

Bob Peterson, Koochiching County auditor/treasurer, said Thursday he was unsure of the county’s exact turnout, but he said it was very high.

“It was a very good turnout and we had a lot of new Election Day registrations,” he said.

The city’s East Ward saw more than 200 new registrations; the West Ward had 168 and the Center Ward 168.

“They might not be new people to the area, but they may have moved and needed to reregister,” said Peterson. “But we did have some new, young people registering for the first time.”

Few problems were reported at the polls, with just a couple incidents with voting machines being quickly remedied, said Peterson.

The Minnesota Secretary of State Office website, a resource in election results for many people and media outlets, was slow to upload to computers because so many people were attempting to view it. 

The website is a valuable tool for many people and includes lots of good information, said Peterson. However he said county staff had difficult uploading results to the website because it was so busy.

Peterson said he was pleased the voter ID measure failed Tuesday. Peterson and many others voiced concerns about the measure that, if approved Tuesday, could have cost Koochiching County money and changed the way many Koochiching County voters cast ballots. The additional costs would have been involved in establishing polling places that meet federal and state standards to accommodate the many voters who now vote by mail.

Peterson said mail ballots, overall, work well for Koochiching.

Meanwhile, Peterson encouraged people to become active in government.

And his work in the election is not over, yet. Peterson said canvassing of election results and a post-election review will take place Friday.

Then, he said, he will head to the hunting shack with family for a break.

 

COUNTYSTATE

VOTE %VOTESVOTE %VOTES

President

Barack Obama53.7%3,45152.8%1,542,005

Mitt Romney44.2%2,84145.2%1,320,042

 

 

U.S. House District 8

Rick Nolan58.8%3,73354.5%192,768

Chip Cravaack41.2%2,61445.5%161,126

 

U.S. Senate

Amy Klobuchar69.0%4,31565.2%1,850,578

Kurt Bills27.3%1,70430.6%867,785

 

State Senate District 3

Tom Bakk61.0%3,77164.7%28,863

Jennifer Havlick39.0%2,40635.3%15,743

 

State House District 3A

David Dill66.3%4,06666.9%15,092

Jim Tuomala33.7%2,06433.1%7,469

 

Supreme Court Chief Justice

Dan Griffith52.9%3,17839.8%847,263

Lorie Skjerven Gildea47.1%2,83160.2%1,283,149

 

School Board Member (South Koochiching) (Elect 3)

Ralph Lewis37.0%421

Andrew Dreher32.0%364

Dustin Waller29.4%334

Write-In1.6%18

 

School District Ballot Question Approval Of School District Bonds

Yes79.6%609

No20.4%156

 

School District Ballot Question 1, 

Approval Of School District Referendum Revenue Authorization

No65.0%415

Yes35.0%223