By Seth Boyes,
The race for an open at-large seat on the Decorah City Council won’t quite be decided until next month. The race attracted a total of three candidates — Kent Klocke, Paul Wanless and Cody Whittle — and more than 50 percent support from the voting public was required in order to be declared the winner. But unofficial election night results showed none of the candidates on Tuesday’s ballot broke that benchmark.
Winneshiek County Auditor Ben Steines said the two most popular candidates — Klocke and Whittle in this case — will head to the polls again during a run-off election on Jan. 7, 2025. Steines also pointed out last month that Decorah is the only city in Winneshiek County which includes provisions for a run-off in its city ordinances.
Tuesday’s special election was held to fill a vacancy on the Decorah City Council, following the resignation of former council member Ross Hadley, who stepped down earlier this fall after announcing he and his family would be moving out of the area. Klocke, Wanless and Whittle each submitted candidacy papers to run for the open seat before the Nov. 15 filing deadline.
A total of 1,373 ballots were cast, according to unofficial election night tallies — less than a quarter of the registered voters eligible to participate in Tuesday’s special election — but none of the three candidates pulled ahead of the pack enough to be declared the winner. Whittle was less than 2 percent from an outright win, coming in as the most popular candidate with 673 votes, or about 49 percent of Tuesday’s total. Klocke was a little more than 100 votes behind him with 571 cast ballots in his favor for about 42 percent. Tuesday night’s totals showed Wanless in a distant third, garnering 129 votes for about 9 percent support at the polls — eliminating him from next month’s run-off.
Whomever ultimately wins the special election is expected to serve on the Decorah City Council until at least Dec. 31, 2025 — what would have been the end of Hadley’s most recent term. The at-large council seat will then be placed on the ballot again, and the winner of next month’s run-off will need to file new candidacy papers if he intends to retain his seat on the council.
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