Wisconsin: Officials creates grant programs for local election security efforts | Local government | Briana Reilly/The Cap Times

Wisconsin elections officials on Wednesday signed off on a plan to make available over $5 million in federal funding to beef up local voting security efforts ahead of the November general election. The money — made available under two separate subgrants, one for counties and another for municipalities — seeks to bolster cybersecurity technology and training specifically, rather than tackle costs associated with the COVID-19 crisis. Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe touted the importance of continuing to focus on the importance of localities’ cybersecurity efforts before voters cast ballots this fall, noting currently there’s “a much larger pot of money available” for coronavirus-related costs.” “These are the only funds that are out there that are specific to cyber security and elections,” she said of the federal Help America Vote Act funding. “I just really think it’s important that we not lose light of all the cybersecurity things that still need to happen in our state to make sure that we can continue to keep pace with the cybersecurity threats that change every single day.”

Wisconsin: After Milwaukee had just 5 voting sites in April election, officials recruiting more poll workers so it won’t happen in November | Alison Dirr/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee election officials hope to be able to open all 180 polling sites in November’s presidential election — if conditions with the coronavirus pandemic allow. A second surge in coronavirus cases and a level of public fear that drives people away from working the polls — as happened in the April 7 election — would seriously hamper that effort, outgoing Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Neil Albrecht told members of the Common Council on Monday. Unlike the April 7 election, when the city was losing election workers by the day, Albrecht said, the city has more time ahead of the November election to recruit people to work the polls. He’s optimistic that will put the city in a better position. “The contingency plan is we may need to consolidate sites again, but … certainly nothing close to five” election centers, which the city experienced in April, he said. Those five centers, down from its usual 180 voting sites, forced residents to stand in line for hours in the midst of the pandemic to cast their ballots.

Wisconsin: Were absentee ballots without postmarks counted in the April election? The answer depends on where you live | Jake Prinsen/Appleton Post-Crescent

Of the many issues in Wisconsin’s April 7 election — stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, a huge number of absentee ballots and several court challenges — one was created by the U.S. Supreme Court. On the eve of the election, the Supreme Court said absentee ballots had to be postmarked on or before April 7 to be counted. Not all mail gets postmarks, however, which meant some ballots might have been sent on or before the deadline but wouldn’t get counted. In an April 10 meeting, the Wisconsin Elections Commission left it up to municipal boards of canvassers to decide whether to count ballots they received after April 7 without a postmark. Those decisions led to inconsistencies in how those ballots were counted. “We provided guidance to clerks about that, but we can’t review every decision that they make,” Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesman Reid Magney said. “There’s a chance there were some inconsistencies in how that was handled across the state.”

Wisconsin: Election Commission approves $4 million for vote by mail, lawmaker not happy | Benjamin Yount/The Center Square

Wisconsin’s 1,850 local election managers will share $4 million to mail almost every voter in the state an absentee ballot application this fall. Wisconsin Election Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe made the announcement Friday.  “We are using the lessons we learned from the spring election in April and the federal grant funds to ensure we are prepared for November,” Wolfe said. The money is coming from Wisconsin’s share of the federal coronavirus stimulus package. The WEC unanimously voted this week to send nearly three million voters absentee ballot applications. The WEC will not be mailing actual ballots, however. Mailing ballots “would require the legislature to pass and amend existing law, and the Wisconsin Elections Commission does not have the authority to make these changes,” the WEC said in its announcement.

Wisconsin: Election officials agree to mail absentee ballot request forms to most voters | Patrick MarleyMilwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin election officials agreed Wednesday to send absentee ballot applications to most voters this fall, but the plan could face obstacles next month if Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on the wording of the mailing. The members of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 6-0 to advance the plan a week after they failed to reach consensus on who should receive ballot applications. Under the commission’s plan, the state will not send actual absentee ballots, but rather the forms voters can use to request them. If voters filled out those forms and provided a copy of a photo ID, they would receive an absentee ballot for the Nov. 3 presidential election. The mailing would also include information about how to request an absentee ballot using the state’s online portal, myvote.wi.gov. Mail voting surged to nearly 1 million in the April election for state Supreme Court as people tried to stay at home as much as possible during the coronavirus outbreak. Mail voting this fall is expected to surpass the record set in April. The state has 3.4 million registered voters. About 528,000 of them have already requested absentee ballots and the state believes about 158,000 of them have moved since they last voted.

Wisconsin: Election officials vow changes to absentee ballot system | Daphne Chen/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Election officials vow major changes to the state’s absentee voting system after ballots failed to reach thousands of citizens in Wisconsin’s spring election, throwing an already chaotic vote into further disarray amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The fixes “will save so much work for the clerk and hopefully save work for the voters,” Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesperson Reid Magney said. The changes follow an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the PBS series FRONTLINE and Columbia Journalism Investigations that revealed numerous breakdowns in the state’s absentee ballot system, including inadequate computer systems and misleading ballot information. The investigation found that voters may have been misled by the state-run election website MyVote, where they could track the progress of their ballot, including the date their ballot was “sent.” That date actually reflects the date the mailing label was generated, the investigation found, not the date a ballot was mailed.

Wisconsin: Glitches, mailing problems mar absentee voting in Wisconsin | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Nearly 2,700 absentee ballots in Milwaukee were not sent and about 1,600 in the Fox Valley were not processed because of computer glitches and mailing problems, according to the most comprehensive account yet of what went wrong in the April 7 election. In Milwaukee, 2,693 voters were not sent absentee ballots after technical issues marred their production on March 22 and March 23, according to a report by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. About half of those people eventually voted, either with replacement absentee ballots or at the polls. The others did not vote. The election for a seat on the state Supreme Court, the presidential primary and a host of local offices, put a global spotlight on Wisconsin for holding an election in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The report highlights the kind of difficulties Wisconsin and other states could face in the November presidential election. A separate problem emerged when about 1,600 ballots for the Appleton and Oshkosh areas were found at a mail processing center the day after the election. It was not clear in the report if the ballots were on their way to voters or on their way back to clerks when they were found. Either way, they were discovered too late to be counted.

Wisconsin: Election officials show support for sending voters absentee ballot forms, but split on who should get them | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin election officials inched toward sending absentee ballot request forms to voters Wednesday, but they put off a decision after Republicans and Democrats split on how many people should get the ballot applications. Democrats on the Wisconsin Elections Commission want to send the applications to about 2.7 million people, the vast majority of the state’s registered voters. The Republican chairman agreed ballot applications should be sent out. But he doesn’t want to send them to those who appear likely to have previously voted by mail or who live in communities that are already planning to mail absentee ballot forms to their residents. That would result in ballots going to 1.7 million or fewer people. The commission consists of three Republicans and three Democrats. It was unclear Wednesday if the commissioners could reach a deal on the issue when they meet again in about a week. The commission is not considering the mass mailing of actual ballots. Rather, it is weighing sending applications that voters could fill out and return with a copy of a photo ID. Those voters would then be sent an absentee ballot.

Wisconsin: Questions linger as new research suggests election was linked to rise in coronavirus cases | Daphne Chen and John Diedrich/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Research on the effects Wisconsin’s spring election continues to emerge — and not all of it agrees. A study released Monday by economists at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Ball State University suggests that in-person voting may have led to a “large” increase in the rate of positive coronavirus tests weeks later. The report, which has not been peer-reviewed, is at least the third to come out since the April 7 election, and the first to conclude a positive link, giving the public a front-row seat on the messy, uncertain and sometimes lurching progress of science. Epidemiologists and infectious disease experts in Wisconsin previously said the spring election did not lead to a feared spike in COVID-19 cases, though they warned that the effects may be hidden in the data and difficult to ever detect. Investigations involving contact tracing by public health officials were similarly inconclusive. Last week, Milwaukee County epidemiologists said they found 26 county residents who may have been infected with coronavirus during in-person voting. However, they said their attempts to prove the link were complicated by a lack of data and the fact that the election took place around Easter and Passover, which led to more people gathering in general.

Wisconsin: In-Person Voting May Have Led to ‘Large’ Increase in Coronavirus Cases, Study Suggests | Meghan Roos/Newsweek

new study published Monday suggests in-person voting during Wisconsin’s primary election on April 7 may have led to “large” increases in the state’s number of COVID-19 cases. Though the data gathered by economists at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and Ball State University was not complete, the researchers said their assessment of COVID-19 cases by county thus far indicates a strong connection between each county’s number of in-person polling locations and spikes in positive cases. The real impact of in-person voting on rising case numbers could have been even broader than the data suggests, researchers said. “Across all models we see a large increase in COVID-19 cases in the weeks following the election in counties that had more in-person votes per voting location,” the study authors said. “Furthermore, we find a consistent negative relationship between absentee voting and the rate of positive COVID-19 tests.”

Wisconsin: Sweeping lawsuit seeks to have absentee ballot requests sent to all Wisconsin voters | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A disability rights group and others sued Wisconsin election officials Monday to try to ensure the state has enough poll workers and guarantee voters who want absentee ballots receive them, adding to a cascade of litigation over how elections should be run as the coronavirus pandemic persists. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Madison, seeks to ensure people have ample opportunities to vote in person or by mail for the August primary and November general election. It aims to force election officials to hire more poll workers, send absentee ballot request forms to all registered voters, set up secure drop boxes for absentee ballots in every community and notify voters if their ballots won’t be counted so they have time to fix any problems. Bringing the lawsuit are Disability Rights Wisconsin, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities and three women who say they were prevented from voting or faced numerous obstacles in the April 7 election for state Supreme Court. That election caught worldwide attention because of a lack of poll workers, shuttered polling places and long lines in Milwaukee and Green Bay. The lawsuit contends the way the state plans to run this fall’s elections will violate the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Wisconsin: Nine lessons from Wisconsin’s chaotic spring election | Susan Benkelman/American Press Institute

Wisconsin’s election on April 7 was a test of how a democracy functions in a pandemic. Democracy held on, but at a price. The election offered a window into the logistical challenges of trying to forge ahead with voting at a time of social distancing, and it was a closely watched battleground in the larger war over voting rights. It also holds lessons for journalists, who in Wisconsin had to report on plans that were changing by the hour, then consider how much risk they were willing to take to their own health and safety to cover the voting. Two legal battles in state and federal court pitted Democratic Gov. Tony Evers against Republican legislators. In both cases, the governor lost, requiring the state to hold the vote as scheduled on April 7 and to count the absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day. These battles were fought in the last few days and hours before the election, creating uncertainty and chaos both for people who wanted to vote by absentee ballot and for the local elections officials who were trying to keep up with the on-again-off-again scheduling.

Wisconsin: Voters Brave Pandemic Again for Special Election | Andy Monserud/Courthouse News

Voters in northern Wisconsin braved the coronavirus pandemic Tuesday to cast their ballots in a special election to fill the vacant 7th Congressional District seat, just a month after the state saw record absentee voting in a virus-stricken presidential primary. Polling places in the towns of Hudson and Somerset near the state’s western border saw a steady trickle of voters choose between Republican state Senator Tom Tiffany of Minocqua and Tricia Zunker, a Democrat who is president of the Wausau School Board and justice on the Ho-Chunk Nation Supreme Court. Lines were rare and short at polling places in the two border towns despite Wisconsin’s consolidation of polling locations to save personal protective equipment. With two polling places each, local officials in Hudson noted that the in-person turnout was much lower than it had been during the state’s presidential primary and Supreme Court election on April 7.  The mood at Hudson’s firehouse, which hosted voting for two-thirds of the city’s voters, was easygoing early in the morning, with Police Chief Geoff Willems and Finance Director Alison Egger making casual conversation with voters in the parking lot.

Wisconsin: Clerks Plan Protective Measures For In-Person Voting In Congressional Special Election | Rob Mentzer/Wisconsin Public Radio

Voters in the 7th Congressional District can expect to encounter protective barriers, strict limits on the number of people at polling places and other protective measures as they head to the polls for Tuesday’s special election. “The clerks in our district are taking the safety of the voters extremely seriously,” Oneida County clerk Tracy Hartman said Friday on WPR’s “The Morning Show.” Besides adding clear-plastic partitions between voters and poll workers and limiting numbers in polling locations, clerks will offer hand sanitizer stations and make pens single use, one per voter. Many of these practices were put in place statewide for Wisconsin’s April 7 presidential primary and state Supreme Court elections. Hartman said some clerks have used the last month to implement new safety measures. “We took April, we learned from it and we’ve improved upon it,” she said. “Overall, at least in Oneida County, it was a positive experience and we kept the voters as safe as possible.”

Wisconsin: What would it take for Wisconsin to hold a mail-in election? | Briana Reilly/The Cap Times

In Wisconsin, some harbor a lofty goal when they look at the remainder of the 2020 cycle: implementing a system by which voters cast their ballots almost entirely by mail. But with both chambers of the Legislature controlled by Republicans who have signaled they’re not interested in a plan pushed by a handful of Democrats, the idea is essentially dead on arrival. Even if the proposal had the backing of both political parties, though, there are a series of hurdles to putting it in place just three months before the August primary and six months before the November general election. It’s no easy task to transition to a vote-by-mail system. Five states have done so, but it’s a big undertaking that, according to the federal Election Assistance Commission, includes more than 100 tasks that states would have had to begin last month to be on track for Nov. 3, according to a recent EAC project timeline. And an election security expert with New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice said Wisconsin “already has a great framework” in place given that it, like 29 others, allows voters to cast ballots by mail without providing a reason why they can’t vote in person on election day.

Wisconsin: Madison logs over $100,000 in extra costs for April 7 pandemic election | Abigail Becker/The Capital Time

Madison spent an extra $108,000 to help voters cast ballots in the spring election as local officials statewide worked to secure supplies and cover sometimes heightened labor costs for contests held in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s around 21% higher than the $504,000 originally budgeted for pulling off the April election, city finance director Dave Schmiedicke wrote in an email. Madison logged 56% turnout among absentee and in-person voters. But while Madison’s costs soared, Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said the county’s expenses for setting up the elections were not as affected by the pandemic. Municipalities, which are responsible for mailing absentee ballots, faced the brunt of additional expenses like postage, staff time and safety equipment like Plexiglass shields.  “April expenses were not too out of line for the county as we were already planning on large turnout due to the Democratic primary,” McDonell said, noting the county ordered extra ballots. It’s still unclear how Madison’s figures compare to other large municipalities in the state, which saw increased requests for absentee ballots and, in some cases, large lines on Election Day as polling locations were consolidated amid staffing shortages and other concerns.

Wisconsin: 26 Milwaukee residents may have been infected with COVID-19 during in-person voting April 7, but report is inconclusive | Mary Spicuzza/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Twenty-six Milwaukee County residents may have been infected with COVID-19 during in-person voting on April 7, but local officials say the effect of Wisconsin’s election could be impossible to determine. A report released Wednesday found 26 people may have been infected while at the polls last month, and another 26 may have been infectious when they participated in the election. That total includes 52 voters and two poll workers in Milwaukee County. But the latest analysis, which was done by the Milwaukee County COVID-19 Epidemiology Intel Team, was not able to determine exactly how many people were infected with the virus at the polls. Darren Rausch, the director of the Greenfield Health Department and lead for the Milwaukee County COVID-19 Epidemiology Intel Team, said the timing of the election made it difficult to clearly identify coronavirus cases linked to the election. “What complicated our analysis is also included in this time frame is both the Easter and Passover holiday weekends, and both of those included the opportunity for significant breaches of the safer-at-home order,” Rausch said in an interview. “So that was complicating our work from the beginning.”

Wisconsin: State to hold more elections during pandemic as clerks scramble to ensure safety | Chelsea Hylton, Francisco Velazquez and Dee J. Hall/Wisconsin Watch

Tamia Fowlkes of Milwaukee was among thousands of voters in Wisconsin who reluctantly went to the polls on April 7. Fowlkes had voted absentee — like more than a million other voters in the state — but then helped her grandfather cast his ballot in person after the state Supreme Court ruled that Gov. Tony Evers lacked the authority to delay the election because of the pandemic. “We were the only state in the entire country to have an (in-person) April primary,” said Fowlkes, a UW-Madison student active in registering students to vote. “I don’t know if there was any way to make it safe, because it just wasn’t something that we should have been doing.” Last week, state officials said as many as 52 people — including National Guard members, voters and poll workers — developed COVID-19 after in-person voting, although it is possible they were exposed in other ways. That day, voters chose former Vice President Joe Biden as the state’s Democratic selection for president and liberal judge Jill Karofsky to join the Wisconsin Supreme Court. On May 12, voters in central and northern Wisconsin will again be asked to cast ballots during a pandemic, this time to replace U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy in the sprawling 7th Congressional District.

Wisconsin: Why State’s Voting By Mail Was Chaotic | Daniel C. Vock/Wisconsin Examiner

Wisconsin’s primary election has become a cautionary tale for election administrators and public officials all over the country. Nobody wants to see long lines of masked voters like Milwaukee saw on April 7 due to a lack of poll workers and polling places. But the Wisconsin election also offered another lesson: moving voters to mail-in ballots isn’t easy, either. More than 80% of Wisconsin voters cast ballots remotely in the April election, compared to less than 10% for most elections. In all, municipal clerks sent out 1.27 million absentee ballots. The sudden surge led to a host of problems, from a big spike in mailing costs for local authorities to ballots that never got to the voters they were sent to. “It’s widely understood throughout the country that the Wisconsin process was chaotic. Polling places were closed. People who asked for absentee ballots didn’t get them. It’s the opposite of what you’d want for an election,” said Sam Berger, the vice president for democracy and government reform at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C. “But Wisconsin is not a state that is thought of having a poor election administration during normal times.”

Wisconsin: Tens of thousands of ballots that arrived after Election Day were counted, thanks to court decisions | Amy Gardner, Dan Simmons and Robert Barnes/The Washington Post

Early last month, voters in Wisconsin navigated a dizzying number of rule changes governing the state’s spring elections as officials tussled over the risks of the novel coronavirus, prompting a backlog of absentee ballot requests and fears that many would not be able to participate. But in the end, tens of thousands of mail ballots that arrived after the April 7 presidential primaries and spring elections were counted by local officials, a review by The Washington Post has found — the unexpected result of last-minute intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Milwaukee and Madison alone, the state’s two largest cities, more than 10 percent of all votes counted, nearly 21,000 ballots, arrived by mail after April 7, according to data provided by local election officials. The surprising outcome after warnings that many Wisconsinites would be disenfranchised amid the pandemic was the result of a largely unexamined aspect of the court’s decision that temporarily changed which ballots were counted. Because of the order, election officials for the first time tallied absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day, rather than just those received by then — underscoring the power of narrow court decisions to significantly shape which votes are counted.

Wisconsin: Officials say at least 40 people who voted or worked in Wisconsin elections have coronavirus | Rebecca Klar/The Hill

At least 40 people who voted in person or worked at polls in Wisconsin’s elections earlier this month have tested positive for coronavirus, the state’s health department confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday. “So far, 40 people who tested COVID-19 positive after April 9 have reported that they voted in person or worked the polls on election day,” Elizabeth Goodsitt, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, said in an email. It’s unclear if the people got the coronavirus through taking part in the primary, however, as several reported additional possible exposures, she said. Politico reported earlier Tuesday that the department confirmed at least 36 people who voted in person or worked at the polls had tested positive.

Wisconsin: 52 people with COVID-19 reported participating in spring election | Riley Vetterkind/Wisconsin State Journal

At least 52 Wisconsinites who got COVID-19 reported voting in person or working the polls in the April 7 election, which health experts warned would increase the risk of spreading the disease. But the state Department of Health Services, which released the figures, cautioned it can’t say for certain whether the election was the reason the 52 contracted the virus without more data, such as a comparison group of negative cases. Several of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 and participated in the election also reported other possible exposures to the illness, which so far has infected at least 6,289 people and led to 300 deaths in the state.

Wisconsin: Health department: 36 people positive for coronavirus after primary vote | Nolan D. McCaskill/Politico

At least three dozen Wisconsin voters and poll workers have tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the unique coronavirus, the state health department told POLITICO on Monday. Shortly after the state held an in-person election on April 7, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services announced “new tracing mechanisms” to help local health departments track residents who might have been exposed to the virus while working the polls or casting a ballot. “So far, 36 people who tested Covid-19 positive after April 9 have reported that they voted in person or worked the polls on election day,” said Jennifer Miller, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Miller said “several” people within that group reported additional possible exposures, making it unclear whether the election itself is responsible for their contraction of the disease. If those people contracted the virus prior to the election, they could have also spread it to others who went to the polls that day.

Wisconsin: State Senators Consider Options For Safer Elections | Elizabeth Dohms-Harter/Wisconsin Public Radio

With elections for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District and the U.S. president coming up this year, and with a chaotic April 7 primary still in the rear-view mirror, two Wisconsin senators agree that the threat from COVID-19 will change the way future elections are run. April’s election was beset with problems including voters not receiving requested absentee ballots, mailed absentee ballots getting lost and long voting lines that dragged on as voters tried to social distance to protect themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic. Speaking on WPR’s “Central Time,” state Sen. Kathy Bernier, R-Lake Hallie, who represents Wisconsin’s 23rd state Senate district, said in future elections, she fully expects to see safety measures implemented at polling sites such as the plexiglass barriers that were used in April’s election. But the long lines in cities such as Milwaukee that had five polling places serving 180 wards shouldn’t happen, said Bernier, who’s also chair of the State Senate Committee on Elections, Ethics and Rural Issues.

Wisconsin: Elections Commission urges absentee voting for Special Election May 12 | WSAW

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is urging anyone who is concerned about COVID-19 exposure to make plans now to vote absentee for the May 12 Special Election in 7th Congressional District. “If they are concerned about going to the polls on Election Day, registered voters should request an absentee ballot as soon as possible,” stated Meagan Wolfe, Wisconsin’s chief elections official. nThe deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail is Thursday, May 7, but Wolfe said voters should not wait until then because processing or postal delays could make it difficult to receive and return the ballot by May 12.

Wisconsin: Milwaukee Council votes to mail absentee ballot applications | Alison Dirr/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Milwaukee Common Council voted unanimously Tuesday to create a program under which all of the city’s approximately 300,000 registered voters would receive an application for an absentee ballot in the mail.      

The “SafeVote” program also provides voters with a postage-paid return envelope so they can participate in the fall election. The measure was proposed by new Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic and passed at her first meeting on the Common Council. The resolution notes thousands of people turned out to vote in person earlier this month in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic that has caused government officials to limit the number of people who can gather under other circumstances. In Milwaukee, some residents reported waiting in line for more than two hours to cast their ballots at the city’s five in-person polling locations.

Wisconsin: ‘They should have done something’: Broad failures fueled Wisconsin’s absentee ballot crisis, investigation shows | By Daphne Chen, Catharina Felke, Elizabeth Mulvey and Stephen Stirling(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In Lodi and Pewaukee, voters were told the system for requesting absentee ballots crashed. In Marshfield, Shorewood and Bristol, voters threw up their hands after spending hours in front of computers trying to request a ballot. In Milwaukee and Green Bay, dozens of couples said one member of their household received a ballot while the other didn’t. “Nobody cared,” said Brenda Lewis, a 61-year-old Delafield resident who said her local clerk could find no record of her or her husband ever requesting an absentee ballot, even though both of them had. “They should have done something, some sort of public service (announcement), something, just something,” Lewis said. “But nobody did.” An investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the PBS series FRONTLINE and Columbia Journalism Investigations into Wisconsin’s missing ballot crisis reveals a system leaking from all sides, buckling under the weight of a global pandemic and partisan bickering that kept the logistics of Election Day up in the air until less than a day before polls opened. Inadequate computer systems, overwhelmed clerks and misleading ballot information hampered Wisconsin’s historic — and historically troubling — spring election.

Wisconsin: At least 7 new coronavirus cases appear to be related to Wisconsin’s election, Milwaukee health commissioner says | Alison Dirr/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Officials have identified seven people who appear to have contracted COVID-19 through activities related to the April 7 election, Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik said Monday. Six of the cases are in voters and one is a poll worker, Kowalik said. By the end of this week, officials hope to have additional information on the cases that were reported between April 7 and Monday, she said. That includes an answer to whether any of the seven cases resulted in death and whether the cases were concentrated at any of the city’s five in-person polling locations. “There needs to be a little bit more analysis so we can connect the dots, that’s why case investigation and contact tracing is so important,” she said. Asked how to conduct contact tracing at polling sites when anyone present was surrounded by numerous strangers, Kowalik referenced doing broad notification for people who were present during a certain time frame.

Wisconsin: Election commission to look into unreturned absentee ballots | Ashley Luthern/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously agreed Saturday to dig deeper into the issue of unreturned absentee ballots in the state’s controversial April 7 election. Of the absentee ballots requested in the spring election, 1.1 million — about 88% — were returned and counted, while 135,417 ballots were never returned, according to the latest data provided Saturday by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Commission Chairman Dean Knudson noted the average absentee ballot return rate is 80 to 85% for state elections. “My point here is while much has been made of this, we actually had a higher than the historical average percentage of valid return,” Knudson said. But the raw number of unreturned ballots went up because so many more people tried to vote absentee because of the coronavirus pandemic, he said.

National: How a Supreme Court Decision Curtailed the Right to Vote in Wisconsin | Jim Rutenberg and Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

The Wisconsin spring elections were less than a week away, and with the state’s coronavirus death toll mounting, Democrats were challenging Republican plans to hold the vote as scheduled. In an emergency hearing, held via videoconference, John Devaney, a lawyer for the Democrats, proposed a simple compromise: Extend the deadline for mail ballots by six days past Election Day, to April 13, to ensure that more people could vote, and vote safely. “That’s going to be much more enfranchising,” said Mr. Devaney, arguing one of the most politically freighted voting-rights cases since Bush v. Gore from his bedroom in South Carolina as his black lab, Gus, repeatedly interrupted at the door. The presiding federal judge, William M. Conley, agreed, pointing out that clerks were facing severe backlogs and delays as they struggled to meet surging demand for mail-in ballots. Yet with hours to go before Election Day, the Supreme Court reversed that decision along strict ideological lines, a decision based in large part on the majority’s assertion that the Democrats had never asked for the very extension Mr. Devaney requested in court. It was the first major voting-rights decision led by the court’s conservative newest member, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and it was in keeping with a broader Republican approach that puts more weight on protecting against potential fraud — vanishingly rare in American elections — than the right to vote, with limited regard for the added burdens of the pandemic.