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.

Wisconsin: Milwaukee Election Commission videoconference on absentee ballots interrupted by ‘Zoombombing’ hackers | Daniel Bice/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A city Election Commission meeting using the videoconferencing software Zoom was abruptly halted on Sunday afternoon shortly after it was hacked in a practice called Zoombombing. Neil Albrecht, executive director of the commission, shut down the videoconference after radical Muslim and crude pornographic images and racial slurs began appearing on the computer screens of all those participating in the meeting. It took Albrecht and the three commissioners a couple of minutes to realize that the meeting had been hijacked by anonymous outsiders. He then engaged in a brief conversation with an individual claiming to be a Zoom tech. Assistant City Attorney Patrick McClain eventually ordered Albrecht to halt the videoconference. There were a couple of dozen people participating in or watching the meeting. “It was an outrageous hack,” Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who is running for re-election, said just minutes after the meeting was Zoombombed.

Wisconsin: Clerks set to count votes in messy Wisconsin election | Todd Richmond and Scott Bauer/Associated Press

Municipal clerks across Wisconsin on Monday were set to start tallying votes from last week’s chaotic presidential primary, a count that was delayed for several days by the legal struggle over whether to postpone the election due to the coronavirus pandemic. Thousands of voters congregated for hours in long lines on Tuesday, defying social-distancing guidelines that led to the postponement of primaries in several other states. The U.S. Supreme Court decided on the eve of the election that absentee ballots, requested in record numbers, had to be postmarked by midnight Tuesday. That overturned a judge’s ruling that had granted a one-week extension, forcing many residents to weigh safety concerns against exercising their right to vote. The election, while unprecedented for Wisconsin, isn’t a factor in deciding the Democratic nominee for the White House. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race last week, all but assuring former Vice President Joe Biden will lead the party ticket in November.

Wisconsin: An election day unlike any other: Wisconsinites vote in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic | Bill Glauber, Molly Beck and Mary Spicuzza/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It was an election day for the history books, unprecedented and unimaginable. After Gov. Tony Evers tried to delay it, and the state Supreme Court declared the vote must go on, Wisconsinites went to the polls in Tuesday’s spring election and cast ballots carefully, deliberately and defiantly in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. “People died for my right to vote, so if I have to take a risk to vote that’s what I have to do,” said Michael Claus, 66, who was among several hundred people waiting in an early morning line to vote at Milwaukee’s Riverside University High School. Across the state, in schools, churches and town halls, poll workers risked their health to make sure democracy worked. Members of the National Guard also pitched in. In Milwaukee, where only five polling sites were open, the workers donned face masks and rubber gloves, handed out black pens to voters, wiped surfaces clean and kept the lines moving as best they could even as the state remained under a safer-at-home order. Hand sanitizer was a must.

Wisconsin: Liberals say they were shut out of court’s debate | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Wisconsin Supreme Court this week heard from conservatives who argued Tuesday’s election should be kept in place, prompting one attorney to cry foul that liberals were not granted the same opportunity to say it should have been delayed.  “There are rules that the Supreme Court requires all people who appear before them to follow — except when they don’t enforce the rules,” Madison attorney Lester Pines said. “It does certainly lend an appearance of favoritism.” But Rick Esenberg of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty argued all sides had a chance to weigh in on the case. He said he followed normal procedures in quickly getting his arguments before the high court. “If Mr. Pines wanted to be heard, he needed to get his submission done immediately because the court is under no obligation to wait for him,” Esenberg said by email. “He could have done what we did. He did not.” The filings came in a fast-moving case that was filed and resolved within hours Monday after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers tried to postpone Tuesday’s election over fears more people would become infected with the coronavirus. The court ruled 4-2 that Evers didn’t have the power to halt the election.

Wisconsin: State supreme court orders primary to move ahead | Sam Levine/The Guardian

The Wisconsin supreme court ordered the state to move ahead with in-person voting on Tuesday, hours after Governor Tony Evers called it off, capping weeks of chaos and criticism as the state scrambled to try and hold an election amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Evers, a Democrat, had delayed in-person voting in the state until 9 June and ordered the legislature into a special session on Tuesday to consider a new date for in-person voting. But in a 4-2 ruling, the state supreme court accepted a request from the Wisconsin legislature to allow voting to proceed. The legislature argued Evers lacked the authority to move the election. Evers had resisted calls to move the election for weeks, saying he did not have the authority to unilaterally call off the election. On Friday he had called on Republicans who control the state legislature to delay in-person voting and move to an all-mail election. Republicans swiftly rejected that request.

Wisconsin: State is discovering problems with absentee ballots, including hundreds that were never delivered | Patrick Marley, Alison Dirr and Mary Spicuzza/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Attention turned to missing absentee ballots Wednesday as state officials reported three tubs of them were discovered in a mail processing center and the Milwaukee Election Commission called for an investigation into a separate set of undelivered ballots.  And Fox Point officials said 100 or more ballots a day were returned to the village as undelivered in the week leading up to the election.  The discoveries emerged as would-be voters across the state expressed a host of frustrations about trying to obtain absentee ballots so they could avoid going to the polls during the coronavirus pandemic. Many have said ballots they requested long ago did not arrive by Tuesday, the deadline for getting their ballots postmarked.  “I learned today that the (Wisconsin Elections Commission) received a call from a postal service worker informing them 3 large tubs of absentee ballots from Oshkosh and Appleton, were just located,” Republican Sen. Dan Feyen of Fond du Lac said on Twitter.  Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Elections Commission, said she had been talking to the U.S. Postal Service about the situation but so far has not determined whether the ballots had been on their way to voters or already filled out and on their way back to clerks. 

Wisconsin: Governor suspends in-person voting in Tuesday’s elections amid escalating coronavirus fears | Amy Gardner and Elise Viebeck/The Washington Post

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued an executive order Monday suspending in-person voting in Tuesday’s elections, citing the intensifying health threat of the coronavirus pandemic. The abrupt move came after the GOP-controlled state legislature refused to postpone the vote during a special session Evers (D) called on Saturday. Evers’s order Monday postpones in-person voting and the receipt deadline for mail-in ballots to June 9. The governor said the fresh urgency to postpone voting resulted in part from dire warnings by the White House over the weekend, when several Trump administration officials predicted that the coronavirus pandemic will worsen dramatically during the coming week. “At the end of the day, this is about the people of Wisconsin,” Evers said in an interview Monday. “They frankly don’t care much about Republicans and Democrats fighting. They’re scared. We have the surgeon general saying this is Pearl Harbor. It’s time to act.” Whether Evers has the authority to unilaterally postpone the election has been the subject of heated debate in Wisconsin, and the governor acknowledged that a Republican court challenge is “likely.”

Wisconsin: Wisconsin Is Set to Vote on Tuesday After Court Overrules Governor’s Postponement | Nick Corasaniti, Reid J. Epstein and Lisa Lerer/The New York Times

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the governor could not postpone Tuesday’s elections because of concerns about the coronavirus, a decision that throws into chaos a presidential primary and nearly 4,000 local contests. The court ruled 4-2, along ideological lines, that Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, could not use emergency powers to unilaterally change the date of the election, which he sought to do to circumvent Republican opposition to the move. Mr. Evers had previously said he lacked the legal authority to delay the election and had called upon the Republican-controlled Legislature to reschedule it. But on Monday Mr. Evers argued that a postponement was necessary to protect voters and slow the spread of the virus. Within minutes of the order, Republican lawmakers called his move unconstitutional, instructing clerks to move forward with voting.

The Legislature’s leaders then challenged the order in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is controlled by a conservative majority. Mr. Evers had expressed confidence on Monday that the court would not reverse the postponement. “This is it,” he said during a live-streamed news conference. “There’s not a Plan B, there’s not a Plan C. We believe the Supreme Court will support us on this.”

Wisconsin: ‘Over our heads in chaos’: Wisconsin on edge of election fiasco amid pandemic | Sam Levine/The Guardian

As states across the US delay their primary elections in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, Wisconsin has decided to stay the course – and it is in complete disarray. Some 111 jurisdictions don’t have enough poll workers to staff a single polling location for the Tuesday vote, and the governor has enlisted Wisconsin’s national guard to help run them. One election official said he feels “sick” asking people to work the polls, knowing it could kill them. Others have advised some voters to isolate their mail-in ballot envelopes for 24 hours before getting a witness to sign it to avoid spreading the virus. And Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for the election to be delayed. In Milwaukee, home to around 300,000 registered voters, there will be just five election day polling locations, instead of the usual 180. Days ahead of the election, Neil Albrecht, executive director of the city’s elections commission, didn’t know where those sites would be or who would staff them. The city usually requires 1,400 poll workers, but had just 400 earlier this week. “We are over our heads in chaos right now,” Albrecht said. “The level of public confusion will be so rampant and the access to voting will be so limited.

Wisconsin: Wisconsin election date still April 7, absentee voting count extended | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A federal judge Thursday kept next week’s presidential primary on track but allowed more time to count absentee ballots after excoriating Wisconsin officials for not doing more to protect voters during the coronavirus pandemic.  The ruling — which was immediately appealed — will allow absentee ballots to be counted if they arrive by April 13, six days after election day. U.S. District Judge William Conley also gave people until Friday to request absentee ballots and loosened a rule requiring absentee voters to get the signature of a witness. But Conley did not go as far as Democrats and voter mobilization groups wanted and declined to postpone Tuesday’s election. On the ballot is the presidential primary and elections for state Supreme Court and local offices around the state.

Wisconsin: Infectious diseases expert: Allowing in-person voting Tuesday ‘just seems really irresponsible’ | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

One of the state’s top public health experts says Republican legislative leaders are putting Wisconsin at unnecessary risk by refusing to delay the election or stop in-person voting. James Conway, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Global Health Institute, said allowing people to gather at polling locations during Tuesday’s spring election will also damage the effectiveness of state leaders’ message to stay away from each other to blunt the spread of coronavirus. “It just seems really irresponsible to make this one giant exception,” Conway said in an interview. “I was a little naive a week or so ago in thinking, ‘Oh, they’ve got to realize they’ve got to delay.’ … And then time has crept on and I’m like, really? I am very concerned.” Gov. Tony Evers on March 25 issued an order closing scores of businesses in an effort to limit the spread of the virus and Conway says, so far, that action has been successful in preventing the virus from spreading like wildfire.

Wisconsin: In matter of seconds, Republicans stall Gov. Tony Evers’ move to postpone Tuesday election | Bill Glauber and Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Get ready for the pandemic election. Republicans stalled Gov. Tony Evers’ move to push back Tuesday’s election, quickly adjourning a special legislative session to deal with voting issues because of  the coronavirus pandemic. During Saturday’s proceedings, the state Assembly and state Senate each gaveled in and out within seconds and recessed until Monday. The move came as pressure mounted on the Democratic governor to act on his own by using emergency powers to block the election. A source close to Evers said the governor was reluctant to do that over concerns that a postponement would quickly be blocked by conservatives who control the state Supreme Court. With only a few lawmakers present, the Legislature did not take up Evers’ effort to extend the election date to May 19 and convert entirely to mail-in voting. As the Legislature made its move, the virus remained unabated. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Wisconsin has more than doubled this week, climbing to over 2,000 on Saturday. Milwaukee County accounts for around half the cases.

Wisconsin: Judge rips into Evers, lawmakers for not delaying Wisconsin election | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A federal judge slammed Gov. Tony Evers and lawmakers Wednesday for ignoring their responsibilities by not postponing next week’s election because of the coronavirus pandemic as the Democratic governor prepared to deploy the National Guard to help at the polls. “The State of Wisconsin’s Legislature and governor are not willing to step up and say there’s a public health crisis and make it absolutely clear that we should not be allowing poll workers and voters to congregate on April 7,” U.S. District Judge William Conley said near the end of a four-hour hearing.  Conley said he did not believe he had the power to delay Tuesday’s election but would consider making some changes to voting rules. He said those who have brought lawsuits could come back to him after the election if they believe large numbers of people were disenfranchised. Conley gave his views of the case as Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for delaying the election and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett — who is on Tuesday’s ballot — said voters should vote absentee instead of going to the polls. Voting in person will be dangerous, Barrett said.

Wisconsin: Wisconsin goes it alone, holding elections next week amid fears of infection and voting chaos | Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

In Tuesday’s Wisconsin elections, more than 100 municipalities will not have enough poll workers to open a single voting location. Tens of thousands of voters who have flooded election offices with mail-ballot requests in recent days are at risk of not receiving them on time. And Sally Cohen, an elderly woman with kidney disease and asthma who is self-isolating in her apartment in Madison, isn’t sure she’ll be able to vote at all because of a state law requiring a witness to sign her ballot envelope. “I was just distraught this morning when I opened it and saw that you have to have a witness,” said Cohen, who is 77 and a retired paralegal. “I thought, ‘I just can’t do it.’ They suggested having the mailman look through the picture window, but I’m on the third floor, so that won’t work.” Voters, election officials and civil rights leaders across Wisconsin are angry that the state legislature is going forward with the April 7 presidential primary and local elections even as the novel coronavirus continues its march across the country. The public health risk is too high, and asking voters to venture out of their homes directly contradicts state and local emergency orders to shelter in place, they say.

Wisconsin: Judge signals he will expand voting but not delay Wisconsin’s election | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A federal judge is signaling he will not move next week’s presidential primary but will expand people’s ability to vote — possibly by allowing them to cast ballots by mail after election day because of the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. District Judge William Conley will hold a hearing at 1 p.m. over what changes, if any, he should make to Tuesday’s election as mayors and clerks warn that voters and poll workers could be sickened and ballots could go uncounted. In a video conference with attorneys Tuesday, Conley indicated he did not think he could change the election date but believed he could offer significant other help for voters. Conley did not allow reporters to listen in on Tuesday’s video conference, but three people familiar with his comments described them to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. How Conley will specifically rule remains unknown, but his comments suggest he could offer a middle-ground solution — one that doesn’t outright delay Tuesday’s election but does make it easier for people to vote than usual. Those bringing the suit hope to persuade him to allow people to continue to vote by mail after Tuesday. On the ballot is the presidential primary, a crime victims rights amendment to the state constitution and elections for state Supreme Court and local offices.

Wisconsin: Milwaukee normally has 180 voting sites; because of coronavirus, fewer than 12 polling places will be open April 7 | Mary Spicuzza and Alison Dirr Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said Tuesday he is not comfortable telling residents to go to the polls on April 7 during the coronavirus pandemic, comments he made as the city pares back its polling locations to a small fraction of its normal total because of a shortage of poll workers. “My fear is that our election in Wisconsin might be the largest public event in the country in April,” Barrett said. Events large and small have been canceled across the nation, including in Milwaukee, as the coronavirus spreads. The City of Milwaukee expects to have only 10 to 12 voting sites — or possibly fewer — open for in-person voting citywide during its April 7 election day, Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Neil Albrecht said Tuesday. That’s a dramatic reduction from the 180 sites that are typically open on an election day. Albrecht cited a drastic shortage of poll workers as the reason for the change, saying that earlier in the week the city was down to 400 poll workers, rather than the 1,400 Milwaukee would typically have.

Wisconsin: Wisconsin poll worker shortage raises fears of uncounted votes | Patrick Marley and Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

More than 100 communities in Wisconsin don’t have any poll workers for the April 7 election and a record number of voters are overwhelming clerks with absentee ballots — leading to warnings that thousands of votes may not be counted. Nearly 60% of Wisconsin municipalities are short on poll workers, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. They are short almost 7,000 poll workers, and election officials are worried even more won’t show up on April 7 because of the coronavirus pandemic that is keeping people in their homes. “To create an illusion for the public that somehow everything is working fine I think is just not appropriate,” Commissioner Mark Thomsen said during an emergency meeting of the commission Tuesday. In Milwaukee, the shortage is pushing election officials to reduce the number of polling places from 180 to 10 or 12 — a scenario Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett characterized as “irresponsible.”  In addition to their concerns about how the election will run, state election officials are worried about the ability of clerks to process the flood of absentee ballots that are hitting them.

Wisconsin: Voting sites closing due to coronavirus poll worker shortage | Patrick Marley and Craig Gilbert/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Some election clerks are so short of workers because of the coronavirus pandemic that they are planning to shutter polling places around Wisconsin — including many of them in Milwaukee. And at least one clerk is warning that some voters in the April 7 election won’t be able to return their absentee ballots in time to have them counted. Milwaukee needs about 1,400 poll workers to run its election but so far has fewer than 400, according to Neil Albrecht, director of the Milwaukee Election Commission. Another 300 workers are needed for the central location where absentee ballots are processed, but fewer than 50 had been hired as of last week. Training those poll workers is difficult because health officials say people must stay 6 feet away from one another to slow the spread of coronavirus. “Given the inability to train new poll workers, it is virtually certain that we will lack sufficient poll workers to staff the polling locations across the city, and will likewise lack the requisite number of staff members to process absentee ballots at the central count location,” Albrecht said in a court filing last week. As a result, the city likely won’t be able to staff all its voting locations, “leaving mail-in absentee voting as the only means currently by which Milwaukee voters will be able to vote for the spring election scheduled to occur on April 7,” Albrecht said.