Town of Liberty supervisor race still undecided as recount challenge heads to Vernon County Circuit Court

May 4, 2025

VERNON COUNTY – TOWN OF LIBERTY, Wis. – It is still not quite clear who won a town of Liberty supervisor seat in the April 1 election. A tie vote on election night appeared to be decided by a coin flip, but a subsequent recount, and then a challenge to that recount have all failed to give a clear outcome to the race. And now the the results are headed to a local court to see if a judge can decipher how the results should be handled.

In a time when most people vote by machine and there is little room for discrepancy, it would seem unlikely for a race to have to have a judge decide the outcome, but an unusual set of circumstances still has the outcome in this race unclear.

Here is a timeline of what has transpired so far.

On election night there were two supervisor seats open in the town of Liberty. There were three candidates running for those two seats and voters were instructed on their ballot to vote for no more than two candidates. One candidate, Bill Townsley, received more votes than the other two with 95 votes, and clearly won one of the two seats. But the other two candidates, Jason Vidas and Carrie Vanek appeared to have tied with 82 votes apiece. Election officials working at the town of Liberty polling place called County Clerk Jerry Pedretti and asked how to resolve the tie. Pedretti advised them to use some kind of chance method of deciding like drawing a name from a hat, cutting a deck of cards, or flipping a coin. They decided to flip a coin. Vanek won that coin toss and was declared the winner on election night.

Recount requested

Since the vote difference was obviously with the margin to ask for a recount, Vidas did ask for a recount as is allowed under state election law. That recount was conducted on April 5 at the Liberty town hall and included the town Board of Canvassers, Albert Miller, Kay Starr and Cathy Linskens. Town Clerk Sharon Engh conducted the recount with County Clerk Jerry Pedretti also present to advise/assist the town. Vanek and Vidas were present along with the other supervisor that was high vote getter, Bill Townsley. There was one other town resident present for the recount.

The initial outcome of the recount seemed to show a reversal of the election night result with Vidas now being declared the winner. The change came as a result of the discovery that one absentee ballot had been witnessed by a person who was also a candidate on the ballot, town chairperson Orlin Engh. State election law says that is not allowed. The town clerk and county clerk made an interpretation of state statues that the ballot in question would be removed from vote totals for all candidates on the ballot. It now appears the correct procedure would have been to draw down the vote totals only for the candidate that improperly witnessed the absentee ballot. That would mean only Engh would lose one vote but not the other candidates. If that is in fact how the statute should have been interpreted that would mean Vanek should not have had her vote total decreased due to that improper signature and there would still be a tie.

Vanek files challenge to the recount

As a result of that possible misinterpretation, Vanek filed a appeal of that recount with the Vernon County Circuit Court pointing out the misinterpretation and asking the court to restore that vote that she says was improperly taken from her.

But wait, there is more

Vidas then filed a response to Vanek’s appeal claiming that Vanek also improperly witnessed an absentee ballot, and because of a slight variation in her name, that ballot was not called into question during the recount process, but should have been. The appeal to the court states that a “member of the same Board of Canvassers, namely Kay Starr, also observed the absentee ballot
envelope signed by Carolyn Vanek and learned after the adjournment of the recount, that Carolyn Vanek is the same person as Carrie Vanek.”

The appeal goes on to say

• Vidas was not given the opportunity to view the witnesses on
  the Absentee Ballot envelopes during the recount and thus was
  unaware that candidate Vanek had siqned as a witness on one of
  those envelopes.
• Pursuant to 59.01(B) (c), Wis. Stats., the scope of review of
  the Circuit Court in an appeal of a recount, includes “newly
  discovered evidence that could not with due diligence have been
  obtained during the recount or evidence received by the court due
  to the unavailability of counsel during the recount.
• If Vidas had been represented by competent counsel during the
  recount, Vidas would have been allowed to view the names of the
  witnesses to the absentee ballot envelopes and could have
  questioned the witnessing by Vanek of her husband’s absentee ballot
  envelope.
• The fact that Carolyn Vanek and Carrie Vanek are the same
  person was not available to the Board of Canvassers during the
  recount.

The appeal also argues that the ballot Vanek witnessed was not a legal ballot and asks the court to remedy the situation by doing another recount.

The matter is scheduled to be heard in Vernon County Circuit Court on Monday, May 5 at 3 p.m.