Voters brace for pandemic election
BROOKFIELD - For months, Kelly Michaels has been living the pandemic election season.
She’s the Brookfield city clerk, charged with making sure that ballots are safely cast and counted.
Even ballots that are turned in by those who are infected with COVID-19.
“All clerks are nervous before a big election because of the unknown,” Michaels said.
And there’s none bigger than Tuesday’s presidential election, with the intense focus on battleground Wisconsin, a state nearly split down the middle in the race between Democrat Joe Biden and President Donald Trump.
From a clerk like Michaels to voters who have already cast ballots, or plan to on Election Day, there is palpable anticipation about how it will all play out in an unprecedented election season.
Michaels, who began her career in Wausau and has served as a clerk for 30 years, has seen it all.
“As a clerk, you have to be nimble on your feet,” she said. “I always liken it like being a wedding planner only you have seven weddings going on at a time with a thousand people coming to each venue. And you have to solve all the problems.”
There was the frenetic April election, in the first wave of the pandemic, when there was a shortage of poll workers and a high level of public fear and anxiety.
Furloughed city workers stepped into the breach and donned protective equipment while Brookfield’s voting sites were consolidated into a single one at the then-newly-opened Brookfield Conference Center.
It all worked out.
And Michaels is confident about Tuesday, spending all summer recruiting poll workers and preparing for the election.
Statewide, 1.85 million people have already voted, whether through the mail or early in-person absentee balloting. That’s about 62% of the total that voted in the 2016 presidential election. The crush has been immense. Consider: Michaels and her staff worked diligently to contact those voters who incorrectly filled out mail-in envelopes. In a few cases, she even went on LinkedIn to make the connection.
They also carefully handled ballots from those who tested positive for COVID-19. One recent day, three people who were infected called ahead to drop off their ballots that were placed in trash bags and later disinfected.
“We have some spray to spray on the envelopes and then let them dry,” she said.
Michaels noticed that more people than ever were dropping off ballots, fearing late mail delivery. Already, 65% of registered voters have cast ballots in Brookfield.
“People sure do like to line up here and come and vote,” Michaels said Thursday.
Among those who flocked to Brookfield City Hall to cast ballots early was Brigitte Garner, an office manager. Waiting in a line of 50 or so people, Garner was bundled against the chill and the pandemic, with a scarf wrapped around her neck, a hood pulled tight over her head and a mask on her face.
For the first time in her life, she voted early. And she admitted, she felt a great deal of stress.
“Look at our country, it’s in turmoil,” she said. “We have a pandemic we’re very concerned about, the election, our economy is in dire straits.”
And she anticipates a long wait until a winner is confirmed.
“I think it’s going to be a week,” she said.
Katie Meysembourg, a safety supervisor, said she’s “a little worried about the election not being settled the night of ... but we just have to wait and see on that.”
Others across the state are waiting in anticipation.
Sarah Gruettner is a school nurse in Milwaukee who is now doing double duty as a contact tracer for the city’s health department.
“I feel like, honestly, this election couldn’t have come at a crazier time,” she said. “We’re in a global pandemic when everything that can go wrong has gone wrong: Natural disasters. Murder hornets. What’s next 2020? … It’s just the perfect storm.”
Gruettner lives at the intersection of the forces pressing down on the election — a health care worker in the midst of a global pandemic, in a field shaped and buffeted by political winds.
Gruettner is nervous about the election — regardless of who wins — because of the health care implications, but also the increasing polarization of the country that has only been amplified in the presidential race.
“This election has really divided people. … And I’m fearful that no matter who wins, that the division is not going away,” said Gruettner, who has already cast her ballot, though she won’t say for whom.
“We’re adults. We should be able to agree to disagree, to have beneficial conversations,” she said.
On Friday at Green Bay’s Austin Straubel International Airport, several thousand people attended a rally for Trump, who will return to Wisconsin Monday night with a rally at Kenosha Regional Airport.
Jim Klingbiel, who lives in the Marshfield area, showed up to cheer on the president in Green Bay. He worked in cheese production until March when he was laid off during the beginning of the pandemic.
“I’m ready to go back to work in another week or two,” he said.
But first, he wants to help Trump win, serving as a volunteer in the campaign’s Marshfield office.
“I think Trump will eke out a win,” he said.
Betty Knepper of Shawano was also at Friday’s rally, selling Trump masks for $5 each in a lot near the airport hangar.
“I’m scared,” she said. “If Trump doesn’t win, I don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re going to pack up the cats and our clothes and start driving someplace.”
While the Trump rally took place at the airport, early voting continued at Green Bay City Hall.
“I’m tired of it, I can’t take much more,” said Jim Hengel, who expressed frustration with what he called a lack of civility since Trump took office.
Hengel blasted Trump’s business record and declared: “I don’t want him. We need a leader, and that’s what I hope we get.”
First-time voter Jetta Wanner said the country was “making history” with this election but expressed fear about the cost.
“Hopefully our economy doesn’t go into the dumpster after this,” Wanner said.
Jeanne Salm and her daughter Colette Schmid just hoped that everyone would get a chance to vote.
Salm, who is 91, normally votes on Election Day, but the pandemic forced a change in plans.
“I made her vote early because we didn’t want to have to wait,” Schmid said.
On Friday in Madison, dozens of people gathered at the City-County Building for early voting after the lunch hour, waiting in the brisk weather with their masks on.
Some walked up to return already completed ballots while others filled out ballots on clipboards while workers bustled around them.
Hannah Mclean noted the division in the country.
“It seems far more dramatic than our last election,” she said.
Sam Varney had a bit more of an upbeat look at the state of America as he dropped off his ballot.
“I don’t think that it’s hopeless,” he said. “There’s a lot of examples of people coming together and really having important conversations and trying to figure this out.”
Laura Schulte of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Nusaiba Mizan of the Green Bay Press-Gazette contributed to this article.