The Southern Door County School District has two new board members and the Door County Board has a new supervisor for the District 19 seat that’s been vacant for nine months following the counting of write-in votes and certification of vote totals for the April 7 election by the respective boards of canvassers in their April 13 meetings.
Here are those results.
Door County Board
Preston Pluff will serve a two-year term as the new District 19 supervisor on the Door County Board.
The district did not have a candidate who filed nomination papers by the Jan. 6 deadline for the April 7 election, the second straight County Board election no one signed up to run for the seat. Patrick Voight won the most write-in votes in that April 2024 election and accepted the seat, but he resigned in June 2025 and the seat has been vacant since.
Pluff received 23 of 64 write-in votes cast in the district, which covers parts of the towns of Liberty Grove and Baileys Harbor and the villages of Ephraim and Sister Bay. County clerk Jill Lau said Pluff accepted the seat.
When no candidates file nomination papers for a county board seat, it is offered to the person who wins the highest number of write-in votes in the election. If that person doesn’t accept the seat, the board will ask people to submit letters of interest for the position and appoint someone to fill it.
Lau also said in an April 14 email to the Advocate that no significant changes came from the April 13 board of canvassers meeting to confirm the election results. The County Board races saw two close results, in District 17 where Dave Smith edged incumbent Superintendent Bob Bultman, 326-311, and District 21 where Nancy Barnowsky Goss eked out a three-vote win over Joe Rogers, 298-295.
Souther Door County School District
Luke Spude and Kristin Tassoul will join the Southern Door County School Board for three-year terms after garnering the most write-in votes in the April 7 election.
Three seats on the board were up for election but current board president Kim Starr was the only candidate to file nomination papers before the Jan. 6 deadline. Spude, Tassoul, Joseph Finger and Kayla Schopf registered with the district after the nomination deadline as write-in candidates, and, assuming Starr won enough votes to retain his seat (which he did with 2,281 votes), the top two write-in candidates would be offered the two other open seats.
Spude won 779 votes and Tassoul 612 from more than 2,500 write-in votes cast for the four registered and 144 unregistered candidates, the school district announced after its board of canvassers met. Spude and Tassoul subsequently accepted their positions, an email from the district said.
Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@usatodayco.com.
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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Write-in candidates accept spots on Door County, Southern Door boards
Reporting by Christopher Clough, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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