A special election in underway in Sherman County, but that doesn’t mean that there is much hubbub about the ongoing vote.
On Monday, almost a week after Sherman County Election Commissioner Marcy Sekutera mailed 218 ballots to registered voters in Sherman County as a part of Ravenna Public Schools’ special election— three Sherman County residents received ballots as a part of a concurrent special bond election being held in the Pleasanton school district—the election commissioner said she has already started to see ballots trickle in.
“It has been really quiet,” Sekutera said of the run up to the special election, noting that not a single voter in Sherman County registered to vote prior to the all-mail special election or updated their information.
With 1,563 registered voters having received ballots as a part of the Ravenna special election—218 live in Sherman County, representing around ten percent of all registered voters in the county—Buffalo County Election Commissioner Lisa Poff took the lead on conducting the election, but Sekutera and her staff were still required to process and mail the ballots to registered voters in the district in Sherman County.
“Buffalo County did all of the ordering and everything and then Election Systems & Software direct shipped everything here and we processed them,” said the Sherman County Election Commissioner. “We stuffed them and mailed them out. Everyone that lives in Sherman County will have to return their ballots here, so we will have to check them in.”
Sekutera said the 218 ballots were mailed on Tuesday, February 18th—the ballots could have been mailed as early as February 17th, but county offices and the United States Postal Service were closed that day due to the Presidents’ Day holiday—from the Loup City post office. Delivery by the United States Postal Service, she said, appears to have been quick in the county.
“We have had quite a few in the drop box and the ones that I have received back through the mail were either postmarked on February 21st or February 22nd,” the election commissioner said. “They must have gotten them pretty quick.”
Monday was the first day that ballots had reached the Sherman County Courthouse in the mail. Ballots had started to appear in the drop box as early as Friday. In total, Sekutera estimated that around twenty ballots—or nearly ten percent of all those sent out—had been returned so far. In Buffalo County, for the Ravenna special election, Poff said on Monday that thirty-seven ballots had been returned.
The special election is scheduled to conclude on Tuesday, March 11th. All ballots must be returned to the Sherman County Courthouse before 5:00 p.m. that day.
After the ballots are “checked-in” by Sekutera and her staff, the election commissioner said that Buffalo County election officials will likely retrieve them “the next morning,” at which time they will be counted and added to Buffalo County’s totals.
“I don’t know if my 218 will make a difference,” Sekutera said. “It just depends.”
No matter the impact that Sherman County’s vote has on the Ravenna bond election, Sekutera said that she expects voters in the district that reside in Sherman County will participate in the process.
