The Senior Election Official for Steinbach says from a logistics standpoint, everything went very well with the municipal election.

Deb Rempel says she always hopes for a large turnout and that was certainly the case this time around. Voter turnout in Steinbach was 55 per cent, compared to 34 per cent in 2014 and 36 per cent in 2010.

Rempel acknowledges there was congestion at times at the polling station, but says that is to be expected when you have ten candidates for council, three choices for mayor, plus a plebiscite. Yet, she says the longest anybody had to wait to vote was probably 20 minutes.

According to Rempel, everything ran smoothly and there weren't any big issues that surfaced. She is not aware of any voters being turned away, noting if they weren't on the voters list, they just had to take an oath before casting their ballot.

Some people have questioned why it took so long for the results to come in Wednesday night. Rempel says that is the result of a high voter turnout combined with a long list of candidates.

"Everybody is counting very carefully, it just takes time to count that many names on the ballot," explains Rempel. "The higher turnout you've got more ballots to count, more to separate and they want to make sure they give out the right numbers before they provide them to me."

The city of Steinbach held its polling station at the Pat Porter Active Living Centre, across the street from Hanover School Division's polling station. Secretary-Treasurer Kevin Heidi has offered an explanation for why Steinbach and Hanover don't share polling stations.

"In past elections, HSD has been in contact with the City of Steinbach requesting that elections be held together at one site," says Heide. "However, the city of Steinbach has declined our invitations to a shared facility. HSD would welcome the opportunity to share polling facilities in the future."

In response, Rempel says "the city is always open to review for future elections to accommodate both and see if it would be an option. But we don't want to pose any hardship on voters if the facility isn't big enough."