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Election Day involves more than quickly marking a ballot and anxiously awaiting election returns.

Filing dispatches from across Wisconsin during Tuesday’s general election, our reporters examined how residents participated in the democratic process. Voters and election workers brought joy, angst and purpose to the polls. 

In some cases images told their stories more powerfully than words. 

Here is the best of Wisconsin Watch’s photography from Election Day, portraits of what we saw and who we met.

Photos: What Wisconsin’s democracy looked like on Election Day is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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An impassive portrait of George Washington watched Tuesday’s Election Day proceedings from his perch above the entrance of Westfield Town Hall.

Washington’s expression offered no hint that the Marquette County, Wisconsin, town was recovering from political tumult: fierce divisions on a three-member board that culminated in September when voters ousted their town chair in a recall election. 

Westfield’s election inspector and chief election inspector soon resigned, along with its treasurer and a town supervisor. The same evening the board approved those resignations, the town clerk, that meeting’s notetaker, handed in her notice.

None of the resignees nor the former board chair, Sharon Galonski, responded to requests for comment for this story.

Several news outlets, including the Associated Press, reported the events, prompting questions about how the resignations might affect Westfield’s preparation for the general election. 

But interim Town Clerk Courtney Trimble said the media blew the situation out of proportion. Volunteers immediately stepped forward following the poll workers’ resignations. Trimble said she had a list of 12 who offered their names.

“I’m confident in their ability,” she said Tuesday. “These elections always feel — I don’t want to say ‘pressure’ — there’s more training that you put in.”

‘Hopefully, tomorrow the commercials will stop!’

Westfield’s polling place occupies its white clapboard-clad town hall, surrounded by cornfields and conifers. The converted one-room schoolhouse dates to the mid-1800s, and chalkboards line its interior walls. Scotch-Irish settlers, attracted by the area’s fertile soil and nearby springs, founded the community.

Here, voters trend conservative. During the 2020 election, they handily handed then-incumbent President Donald Trump 333 votes — nearly two-thirds of ballots cast.

Election greeter Chris Vander Velde stood at the hall’s entrance Tuesday, directing voters to wait in the foyer. They shuffled to the registration table, where poll workers Frank Traina and Susan Porfilio sat. Those caught in the day’s periodic downpours squeaked on the hall’s wooden floors.

Such orderly proceedings were unlike the tempest 2024 presidential cycle, marked by the unexpected withdrawal of President Joe Biden, two assassination attempts against Trump and the rapid ascent of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.

“Hopefully, tomorrow the commercials will stop!” said one voter who arrived mid-morning in a white and black plaid shirt and sparkly flip-flops.

She and Vander Velde laughed.

Behind her librarian glasses, Porfilio instructed electors to sign the register before continuing to the four voting booths arranged along the room’s perimeter.

The morning hustle? Distinctly ordinary.

One voter forgot her photo identification but returned later with the card in tow. A smiling man’s registration incorrectly appended the suffix “Sr.” to his name.

“I have no idea why,” he told Porfilio.

Traina checked IDs and reminded people the ballot was double-sided with the school referendum on the back

“Thank you for working the polls,” a voter in a maroon windbreaker told him. 

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Traina said. With every flick of his arm, his “In God we trust” tattoo peeked out from under his Harley-Davidson T-shirt.

Residents of all ages flocked to the polls.

“No ID?” Traina jokingly asked a curly-haired kid, waiting, as their family signed in.

The child mumbled, hands in pockets.

Later, a young woman in a red raincoat and glasses stepped before Porfilio.

“Have you ever voted here before?” Susan asked.

“No, it’s my first time voting in general,” the woman said.

By 10:30 a.m., over half the town’s electorate had cast ballots, including absentee and early voters.

Porfilio chatted with a man in a Lake Michigan shirt. She checked his voter number.

“And I’ll give you your license back,” Porfilio said.

“You heard my house burnt down, right?” he said.

“No!” she said. “When was that? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

‘Take our township back!’

Across the room, Chief Election Inspector Lacey Baumann supervised the Dominion ballot drop box, the last stop on the voters’ town hall circuit.

Baumann awoke at 3:30 a.m. to milk her 53 goats so she could be at the town hall by 6 a.m., an hour before the polls opened. What started as a COVID-19 pandemic pastime became a side hustle, where she and her family make soaps, lotions, laundry detergent, bath salts and lip balm.

“I just want to confirm that there are two initials on the backside box of your ballot,” she told a woman in sweatpants. “You’re gonna put it in the machine where the arrows are. When you hear the second ‘ding,’ you’ll be good to go.”

Lacey’s twin sister, Lindsay Baumann, won Westfield’s recall election in September. Her campaign pledged to “take our township back!” and she bested Galonski by 32 votes.

From the first meeting in 2023 when its members were sworn in, turmoil marked Westfield’s town board. Members sparred during meetings. Discussion routinely veered into accusations of malfeasance.

The recall petition charged Galonski with a litany of offenses, including initiating the termination of the volunteer fire department without considering citizen input and consulting the town board, spending taxpayer dollars in excess and denying a board supervisor access to town property.

At an August board meeting, Galonski defended her actions and rejected one attendee’s call to resign to spare the town the cost of a recall election.

“I haven’t done anything wrong — not a thing. Everything has been done according to the law and by vote of the board,” Galonski said. “The majority of the board has taken action on many of the things that you want to do a recall on.”

‘It’s our right. It’s our privilege’

Voters continued to stream into Westfield’s town hall for the rest of the day. The town reached another turnout milestone.

“That’s what it’s all about,” Vander Velde said. “It’s our right. It’s our privilege. It’s our responsibility.”

Vander Velde, who moved to Westfield more than three decades ago, enjoys chatting with fellow residents on Election Day, but another reason she enjoys working the polls is the chance to learn the rules and regulations. She calls herself a “law and order person.”

“Government is really of the people,” Vander Velde said. “The people in this township are really good, close people, and you expect your government to respond that way.”

As anxious Americans awaited news of the presidency’s fate, Baumann, the town’s newly elected chair, said she felt the political slugfest in her community was over. 

“It seems like there’s a lot more happier people,” she said. “We’re getting somewhere.”

‘Nowhere else I’d rather be’: An ordinary Election Day follows town’s extraordinary turmoil is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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No. During Wisconsin elections, such as the upcoming general election on Nov. 5, regular voters may only cast ballots in person at a polling location or by mailing an absentee ballot.

The website myvote.wi.gov enables Wisconsin residents to register online and request a paper absentee ballot. For voters who are already registered, Oct. 31 is the deadline to request an absentee ballot. All absentee ballots must be received by municipal clerks by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

However, there are exceptions for military and overseas voters.

The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, enacted in 1986, enables members of the U.S. Uniformed Services, the commissioned corps of the Public Health Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Merchant Marine; their family members and U.S. citizens residing outside the country to electronically request and receive voter registration and absentee ballot applications and blank absentee ballots.

​​Thirty-one states — but not Wisconsin — along with Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands allow some voters, including those in the military or overseas, to return ballots electronically, via fax, email or through an online portal.​ ​​Wisconsin only allows those types of voters to request and receive absentee ballots electronically, but they must return hard copies via the post.

Overseas voters must request their absentee ballots by 5 p.m. Oct. 31. 

Military voters away from home must request their absentee ballots before 5 p.m. on Election Day and return them to their municipal clerk by 8 p.m., which while theoretically possible, is unlikely to be successful when voting in Wisconsin. 

The federal Voting Assistance Program recommends returning completed ballots 11 to 35 calendar days before the election to be counted, depending on the location of the uniformed service member or their eligible family.

Citing cybersecurity concerns, a federal interagency group issued guidance in 2020 to increase state election officials’ awareness of the risks associated with electronic ballot delivery and return. The four agencies recommended paper ballots, saying remote voting is “vulnerable to systemic disruption.”

Wisconsin Watch readers have submitted questions to our statehouse team, and we’ll answer them in our series, Ask Wisconsin Watch. Have a question about state government? Ask it here.

I’m out of town now. Is there a way to vote in Wisconsin elections online? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• The state’s biggest business lobby is helping two residents challenge a Polk County town’s restrictions on livestock feeding operations.

• A ruling in their favor could set a precedent for all Wisconsin municipalities seeking to regulate agriculture, a $105 billion state industry.

• The lawsuit follows efforts by Republican lawmakers to preempt regulations on farming.

After notifying a northwest Wisconsin town last October of their intent to challenge a local ordinance that regulates livestock farming, two residents last week made good on their promise.

Ben and Jenny Binversie, represented by the legal arm of the state’s largest business and manufacturing lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, are asking a circuit court judge to strike down the rules in the Polk County town of Eureka.

A ruling in their favor could set a precedent for all Wisconsin municipalities seeking to regulate agriculture, a $105 billion state industry.

“This ordinance is quite simply another case of government overreach,” the Binversies’ attorney Scott Rosenow, executive director of WMC Litigation Center, said in a press release.

He did not respond to a request for an interview. Jenny Binversie directed inquiries to Ben Binversie, who declined to comment.

Eureka’s ordinance, revised in March 2022, regulates large livestock farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. It doesn’t regulate where large livestock farms can go, but how they operate.

The regulations apply to new CAFOs, or smaller facilities with common ownership, that house at least 700 “animal units” — the equivalent of 1,750 swine or 500 dairy cows.

The rules require applicants to apply for an operations permit and submit plans for preventing infectious diseases, air pollution and odor; managing waste and handling dead animals. They also mandate traffic and property value impact studies, a pot of money set aside for cleanups and decommissioning, and an annual permit fee — atop costs to review the application and enforce the permit terms.

The Binversies’ attorneys find fault with 18 of the ordinance’s requirements, particularly fees. They also claim that Wisconsin preempts local authorities from passing regulations that are more stringent than the state’s unless authorities can prove they are necessary to protect public health or safety.

Even under that exception, which the attorneys say Eureka doesn’t demonstrate, they contend that more restrictive ordinances cannot add new requirements for which no state standards exist. They also argue Eureka’s ordinance imposes new performance standards that the state must approve, which they say the town hasn’t done.

The lawsuit acknowledges the ordinance’s requirements don’t apply to the Binversies, but the attorneys claim they harm the couple and other Eureka taxpayers because the town will use public funds to compensate local authorities and consultants to review permit applications and enforce the ordinance.

In addition to Eureka, four other northwest Wisconsin towns passed operations ordinances after a developer proposed in 2019 constructing a farrowing operation, known as Cumberland LLC, that would have housed up to 26,350 pigs — the largest swine CAFO in Wisconsin.

An advisory group drafted the regulations to plug gaps in state livestock laws, which they believe insufficiently protect health, property and quality of life. For instance, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources cannot regulate issues unrelated to water quality, including air, noise and vehicle traffic. 

Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s “right-to-farm” law protects farmers from nuisance claims, and livestock facility regulations restrict the use of zoning to control where CAFOs are sited.

No CAFOs currently operate in Eureka, a Polk County community of 1,700, but unlike other towns’ operations ordinances, Eureka’s requires CAFOs that intend to spread manure on fields within town boundaries to obtain a permit.

Another community with a CAFO ordinance, Laketown, also faced a lawsuit.

The two Laketown farm families who challenged its regulations included Michael and the late Joyce Byl and Sara Byl, who are the parents and sister, respectively, of Jenny Binversie. They were likewise represented by WMC Litigation Center. The town of Eureka sought to intervene, noting the two towns’ ordinances are “nearly identical.”

Laketown rescinded its regulations following a change in elected leadership, rendering the case moot.

Trial lawyer Andy Marshall, who represented the community and will do the same for Eureka, questioned whether a Polk County judge would agree that the Binversies have legal standing.

“It’s odd to me that they make the argument that somehow the plaintiffs have been damaged because their taxes will go to the optional hiring of experts,” he added. “It simply hasn’t happened yet.”

A judgment against Eureka might invalidate any Wisconsin municipality’s operations ordinance depending on the scope of a court ruling.

Town chair Don Anderson said he is concerned by the lawsuit, but believes the operations ordinance is important. The town of Trade Lake, where the swine farm was proposed and an operations ordinance also enacted, is not so distant from Eureka.

“We’re just wanting to protect ourselves in case it should happen,” he said.

Outside of the court challenges, state lawmakers recently attempted to preempt local farming regulations.

A bill that would have restricted local control passed both chambers earlier this year before Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed it.

The proposal concerned only animal welfare, the administration of medications and vaccinations, and the ways animals are used, but skeptics believed it would have established a legal precedent that could limit any safeguards against potential harms caused by large livestock farms.

A public hearing, where lawmakers discussed the northwest Wisconsin towns, gave them cause to worry.

Tim Fiocchi, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s government relations director, expressed alarm that local ordinances, such as Laketown’s, “destabilize agricultural production” by creating a “patchwork of regulatory hurdles.”

Lisa Doerr, a Laketown forage farmer who chaired the town advisory group, said the Binversie case represents the latest effort at “harassing” those who “have the nerve to stand up” to the agricultural industry by enacting ordinances.

“They’ve been telling us for five years that this was illegal, but what did they do over the winter?” she said. “They went to the Legislature and tried to make it illegal because it’s not illegal.”

This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

Wisconsin town of Eureka sued over large farm regulations is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.