Morry Gash/AP Photo
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Wisconsin voters wait in line to cast their ballots in the state’s presidential primary election, at Washington High School in Milwaukee, April 7, 2020.
Across Wisconsin, confusion and concern dominated as voters tried to cast ballots for the presidential primaries, local elections, and the state supreme court, amid the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Deadlines for absentee ballot returns and official result counts, as well as voting procedures, were still being determined by the courts until the night before the April 7 election. As a result, many voters were left wondering if they’d be able to cast a ballot at all.
“I’m a faithful voter and it really bothered me that I was not able to vote today,” said Mary Cordor, a senior citizen in Milwaukee whose doctors advised her against leaving the home during the pandemic, and whose polling place in her building was shuttered without warning.
Cordor was among countless Wisconsin residents forced to choose between their health and their right to vote. Thousands more across the state didn’t receive an absentee ballot in time to vote in the election.
After initially accepting the April 7 election date, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has struggled for the last two weeks against the GOP-controlled state legislature to adapt Wisconsin’s voting procedures to the pandemic or postpone the election altogether, as 15 other states have done. The battle culminated with a U.S. Supreme Court decision on Monday night to not extend the deadline for absentee voting and a state court decision to overturn the governor’s executive order to postpone the election.
So state election officials suited up—sometimes in hazmat suits—and set out to hold the election with in-person voting, despite a lack of staff and a shortage of absentee ballots to reach the demand of requests. The bizarre nature of the election was epitomized by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos telling reporters, “You are incredibly safe to go out,” while wearing a hospital gown, rubber gloves, and a surgical mask at one of the polling sites.
The impact of holding the election did not affect the state equally. In Milwaukee, there are usually 180 polling sites available to voters. On Tuesday, there were only five. But Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin campus, had 66 polling stations open, of their usual 92.
Milwaukee County happens to have the largest percentage of black residents, at about 27 percent (more than double the level of the next-highest county).
“I think the effect of this will be voter suppression,” said David Canon, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, in an interview with the Prospect. “There are going to be many, many people who even made the decision that they would risk their health to vote, who simply will give up if the wait is that long. I think we will find a different impact based on race and whether or not a voting rights challenge based on the Voting Rights Act could be brought: I don’t know, but it’s possible.”
Lakesha Wilder, of Milwaukee, waited almost three hours to cast her vote at one of the massively consolidated polling stations. She arrived at 7:30 a.m., just after the doors opened, hoping to cast her ballot before going to work. Wilder says she felt like she had to vote in person to make sure it would be counted, amid all of the confusion over absentee voting availability and procedures.
“I really felt like based on all of the different methods of voter suppression—with votes being tossed out and all of that—I just didn’t trust any of it,” Wilder told the Prospect. “I would rather my vote be counted on the day with everyone else did their votes.” She added that the lives of poll workers, the police officers, and voters on-site were all unnecessarily risked for an election that could have been postponed.
Meanwhile, in Fond du Lac County, Daniel Schultz worked the polls for the first time, to help fill the labor shortage. There weren’t as many closures there, and despite his personal protective gear, Schultz said it almost felt like business as usual.
Wilder would have voted by mail if it had been mandated, and made clear that her vote would count, but she has seen how in other states, mail-in ballots can be cast aside. She wanted to be certain her vote would count for her candidate of choice.
The impact of holding the election did not affect the state equally. In Milwaukee, there are usually 180 polling sites available to voters. On Tuesday, there were only five.
In states across the country, and in particular those with more restrictions to voting by mail, there are higher “error rates,” the percentage of votes that get caught up in the bureaucratic web. This can occur when a returned ballot is missing a second witness signature, when a voter’s signature doesn’t match their registration signature, or even when there is a name mismatch, which can occur because of computer or human error. Some studies show that these errors disproportionately affect black voters.
“They know, if we are forced to go out and vote in this environment: Either we won’t go, which is clearly, clearly disenfranchising people from voting, or if we do go, we’re putting ourselves in mortal danger,” Wilder says. “So the GOP, the Court who overturned our final decision to not hold this in-person election, completely screwed us. [As did] every single level of government.”
Wilder was not alone in feeling this way. Mary Cordor of Milwaukee was shocked to find out the night before the election that her usual polling place, just outside her residence at the senior building in Lapham Park, was closed down. Cordor’s doctor explicitly advised her not to go outside during the coronavirus outbreak because of her pre-existing health conditions, which meant that standing in line for hours with hundreds of people was out of the question. For the first time in years, she said, she missed her chance to vote.
“I’m really disgusted,” Cordor said. “I’m a little down about it. To me, it seems like [the government] isn’t caring about the seniors as much as they’re saying they are.”
Many other residents at the senior building were also left with no other way to vote, Cordor says. Her neighbor, who usually works the polling site, only found out on Monday night that her location was closed down, leaving none of the residents time to apply for an absentee ballot. Many residents don’t even have access to a computer to request a mail-in ballot, as the building’s computer lab has been closed to prevent social interactions, Cordor says.
Canon blames Wisconsin’s hyper-partisanship for the state’s inability to help voters, a divide that’s been growing since 2011, when Scott Walker took office as governor. It was also under Walker’s tenure that laws were passed to prevent “voter fraud,” but in practice just make voting more difficult, such as the state’s voter ID law and its witness signature requirement on absentee ballots.
The witness signature requirement affected people across the state, especially people living alone. “I got my absentee ballot yesterday and I didn’t want to ask someone to be a witness for obvious reasons,” says Jaime Cordova, of Madison. He lives alone and didn’t want to bother neighbors to send his ballot in, so he had to go to his physical polling station anyway. “I took it over to my polling station and they were nice enough where they said, ‘Oh well if you’ve already got it filled out. We can ask someone here to sign it for you as a witness.’”
For a brief window last week, between two court decisions, the witness signature requirement was waived. Voters could mail in their ballots with a signed note about why they couldn’t get a witness signature. But a higher court ruled before Election Day that all absentee ballots need a witness signature. It is not yet clear how many voters turned in ballots without that witness signature, on the expectation that they would be counted.
“It’s very understandable that people feel confused, feel upset, and feel angry about what has happened,” said Chris Ott, executive director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. “We have another primary in August and, of course, the general election in November. We don’t quite yet know whether the pandemic will be on track with where it is right now, but we need to get ready to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
