By Lynn Binnie
Whitewater Banner volunteer staff
whitewaterbanner@gmail.com

Turnout for the Spring General Election on April 1 was strong. There were 1.8 million votes cast in the state’s last Supreme Court race in 2023. More than 2.3 million people voted in Tuesday’s contest. There are approximately 3.8 million active registered voters in the state, so the turnout was approximately 62%. Turnout in the City of Whitewater was 3767 voters out of 6442 registered voters, for a turnout rate of 59%. The Armory polling place had 1700 voters, the University polling station, 903 voters, and 1162 people voted either by absentee or in-person early voting. There were 473 election day registrations. Last year’s presidential primary in April turned out only 1560 voters.

As shown in the charts below, the school district referendum enjoyed much more support in the city than in the towns. Similarly, the preferred candidates for the school board were different between the two populations.

Whitewater Unified School District Referendum

	City vote	%	Towns vote	%	Total	%
YES	2097	61%	1092	41%	3189	52%
NO	1357	39%	1576	59%	2933	48%
	3454		2668		6122

Whitewater Unified School District School Board

	City vote	Towns vote	Total
Jennifer Kienbaum	1527	1026	2553
Miguel Aranda	1680	861	2541
Nick Baldwin	1189	1299	2488
Wayne Redenius	891	1188	2079

As is generally the case, the city’s results were outliers compared with the counties in which Whitewater is located. City voters favored the candidates who were elected by the statewide vote.

Justice of the Supreme Court

	City of Whitewater	Jefferson County	Walworth County	State
Susan Crawford	68%	47%	44%	55%
Brad Schimel	32%	53%	56%	45%

Superintendent of Public Instruction

	City of Whitewater	Jefferson County	Walworth County	State
Jill Underly	65%	43%	42%	53%
Brittany Kinser	35%	57%	58%	47%

Constitutional Amendment

	City of Whitewater	Jefferson County	Walworth County	State
YES	54%	67%	71%	63%
NO	46%	33%	29%	37%