Reader question: No one running for [Howard Village Board] District 5? What are they going to do then?
Answer: The deadline to be a candidate in the local spring elections was 5 p.m. Jan. 6. All but two of the 66 Brown County races attracted contenders.
Left empty were contests to represent Howard Village Board District 5, and a municipal judge for De Pere and Ledgeview.
Had it stayed this way, indirect democracy would have taken charge to choose the voters’ representative.
In Howard, if a seat is open, the newly elected Village Board would nominate, interview, and vote on applicants sometime after its first meeting, according to village clerk Ciara Hurrish.
In the case of De Pere and Ledgeview’s municipal court, a combined City Council and Town Board would appoint an interim judge for one year, according to De Pere clerk Carey Danen, provided the applicant is qualified. Though Wisconsin law doesn’t require that municipal judges be lawyers, the state gives local governments that discretion, which De Pere takes advantage of in its laws, requiring its municipal judge be an attorney. The seat would go back to a vote at the next election, in 2027, Danen said.
Write-in candidates register
State election law says the deadline to become a write-in candidate as noon on the Friday before the election, which is April 3.
Kristen Johnson of De Pere on Feb. 26 declared her write-in candidacy with the Brown County Clerk’s Office in the contest for municipal judge, submitting her campaign finance registration, the only document needed to be a write-in candidate, according to Brown County Clerk Pat Moynihan.
Michael Nieft of Howard on March 17 registered his own write-in candidacy for the Village Board.
Like any other write-in candidate, their names will not appear on any ballot.
“The onus is kind of on the voter,” Danen said, with state election law forbidding the list of registered write-in candidates be posted, only given by poll workers should a voter ask for the list.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Reader asks about elected seats with no candidate on ballot in Brown Co.
Reporting by Jesse Lin, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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