GOSHEN COUNTY – As general election voting judges and volunteers trickled through the courthouse doors late Tuesday evening, it was an overall consensus much of the community understood the assignment and showed up to cast their vote in the 2024 general election. Much of the nation sat of the edge of their seat until well into the morning hours as final reports of “unofficial” numbers hit mainstream media. 

“Yesterday went very well and I really appreciate all of the people in the community that stepped up and helped us, the support that my office gets and people who thank us and tell us that they believe in election integrity in Wyoming,” Mary Feagler, clerk of the district court said during the county commissioners meeting on Wednesday morning. “We are very glad yesterday (election day) has come and gone,” Feagler explained. “Looks like we get to do a recount on the entire county thanks to the school board race and we also get to recount Niobrara County school board race that is in our county.”

According to Feagler, the recount began on Wednesday, November 6. 

“We are doing the recount now. The school board race was voted for five,” Feagler explained in an email. “There was less than 1% difference between Lena Moeller who was the person with the fifth most votes and Rob Hunt who ended up sixth. Lena had 1,816 and Rob had 1,669. The difference was .66% so statute calls [it] requires a recount.”

According to unofficial results for Goshen County’s general election summary obtained at 8:20 p.m. on Tuesday evening, 14 names appeared on the ballot for a four-year seat on the Goshen County School Board of Trustees. Results show Kate Steinbock earned the highest number of votes for the seat with 1,955 or 8.82% with Kelly Meeboer Strampe gathered the second highest number of votes for the seat with 1,883 or 8.54%. Taking the third highest votes at 1,846 or 8.33% Tony Goulart obtained his seat on the board. Valerie Lamb Sharp gathered 1,817 or 8.20% of the votes for the fourth seat on the school board while Lena Moeller brought in 1,816 votes or 8.19%. Rob Hunt received 1,669 votes for 7.53%. 

In the recount summary obtained on the morning of Thursday, November 7, final recount numbers indicate Steinbock, Meeboer Strampe, Goulart, Lamb Sharp and Moeller will hold the five four-year terms on the Goshen County School Board of Trustees while Dylan Hager held on to his two-year term on the board with 2,862 or 56.17% of the votes above Jo Meininger who took home 2,200 votes for 43.18% of the total casted votes. 

“[The number of voters,] it’s up. We will look at 2020 because that was presidential. We had 6,272. So, we had more people vote in 2020 by six votes,” Fealger said. “95% of the registered voters as of last night (Tuesday) but all of the outline areas, those registered voters don’t instantly get put into the system, so we do have more registrations to put in from all of the outline areas.”

Although voter turnout was high, the 2020 election raked in more votes throughout the county. 

“The rendezvous center, we had the computers out there, we are registering them and they are being added to the number of registered voters throughout the day. We have to add all of the other registered voters here in the next week to two weeks so the number will go up but the number of ballots cast is going to stay the same. So, actually more people voted in the 2020 election in Goshen County. That was 6,272 as opposed to 6,214,” Feagler explained.

“We had over 2,000 people vote early in the office and if you count the paper absentee ballots, we had almost 3,000 so that is going up. People are finding it convenient to vote ahead of the election day,” Feagler said. 

Other election results throughout the state

President and Vice-President of the United States, four-year term

(R) Donald J. Trump/ JD Vance 192,576

(D) Kamala D. Harris/ Tim Walz 69,508

(L) Chase Oliver/ Mike Ter Maat 4,191

Write-in totals: 2,694

Overvotes: 78

Undervotes: 1,996

United States Senator, six-year term

(R) John Barrasso 198,366

(D) Scott D. Morrow 63,706

Write-in totals: 2,017

Overvotes: 100

Undervotes: 6,854

United States Representative, two-year term, vote one

(R) Harriet Hageman 184,626

(D) Kyle G. Cameron 60,763

(L) Richard Brubaker 9,219

(C) Jeffrey Haggit 5,360

Write-in totals 1,503

Overvotes: 1,580

Undervotes: 7,992

State representative house district 02, two-year term

(R) JD Williams 3,834

Write-in totals: 248

Overvotes: 1

Undervotes: 563

State representative house district 05, two-year term

(R) Scott Smith 3,893

Write-in totals: 303 

Overvotes:0

Undervotes: 686

Shall Justice Kate M. Fox be retained in office?

Yes: 177,758

No: 48,619

Overvotes: 64

Undervotes: 44,596

For justice of the supreme court for a regular eight-year term

Shall Justice John G. Fenn be retained in office?

Yes: 175.946

No: 50,369

Overvotes: 57

Undervotes: 44,671

Contest totals: 6,214

Shall Judge Edward A. Buchanan be retained in office?

Yes: 13,680

No: 2,995

Overvotes: 6

Undervotes: 2,361

For Judge B of the district court of the eighth judicial district, for a regular six-year term.

Shall Judge F. Scott Peasley be retained in office?

Yes: 13,890

No: 2,927

Overvotes: 4

Undervotes: 2,221

For circuit court judge of the eighth judicial district, for a regular four-year term

Shall Judge Nathaniel Scott Hibben be retained in office?

Yes: 13,681

No: 2,750

Overvotes: 2

Undervotes: 2,609

Constitutional Amendment A

The adoption of this amendment would separate residential real property into its own class of property into its own class of property tax assessments. The amendment would authorize the legislature to create a subclass of owner-occupied primary residences. 

For: 146,300

Against: 100,375

Overvotes: 107

Undervotes: 436

“Amendment a, as you heard passed (on a state level) so that will bring with it some challenges, lots of challenges. Not too sure how the legislature will move forward with some of that, but it will be massive for our office,” Debbi Surratt, county assessor, said during the commissioner meeting. “They are wanting to separate residential in multiple ways and so residential property which we don’t track would be assessed at a different rate than residences that people live in. So, I am not sure how they are going to proceed and what kind of a timeline we are looking at.”