Wisconsin voters wait hours at the few open polling stations
MADISON, Wis. — Thousands of Wisconsin voters waited hours in long lines outside overcrowded polling stations on Tuesday, ignoring federal health recommendations so they could participate in a presidential primary election that tested the limits of electoral politics in the midst of a pandemic.
Thousands more stayed home, unwilling to risk their health during a statewide stay-at-home order, but complained that the absentee ballots they had requested were still missing.
Pregnant and infected with the coronavirus, 34-year-old Hannah Gleeson was still waiting Tuesday for the absentee ballot that she requested last week.
“It seems really unfair and undemocratic and unconstitutional, obviously,” said Gleeson, who works at an assisted-living center in Milwaukee. “It seems really absurd. And I think it’s voter suppression at its finest.”
The chaos in Wisconsin, a premiere general-election battleground, underscored the lengths to which the coronavirus outbreak has upended politics as Democrats seek a nominee to take on President Donald Trump this fall. As the first state to hold a presidential primary contest in three weeks, Wisconsin became a test case for dozens of states struggling to balance public health concerns with voting rights.
Joe Biden hopes the state will help deliver a knockout blow to Bernie Sanders in the nomination fight, but the winner of Tuesday’s contest may be less significant than Wisconsin’s decision to allow voting at all.
Its ability to host an election during a growing pandemic could have significant implications for upcoming primaries and even the fall general election.
Results were not expected Tuesday night. A court ruling appeared to prevent results from being made public earlier than next Monday.
After several hours of voting, there were signs that the Wisconsin test was not going well.
The state’s largest city operated just five of its 180 traditional polling places, forced to downsize after hundreds of poll workers stepped down because of health risks. The resulting logjam forced voters to wait together in lines spanning several blocks in some cases. Many did not have facial coverings.
By around midday, most voting sites in Milwaukee reported wait times between one-anda-half to two-and-a-half hours, according to Neil Albrecht, executive director of the Milwaukee election commission. Lines stretched several blocks as workers tried to maintain social distancing recommendations that everyone stand at least six feet apart.
Tens of thousands of voters who received absentee ballots had not returned them as of Tuesday, Albrecht said. He noted that his office received hundreds of calls from people who didn’t get an absentee ballot or were concerned theirs hadn’t been delivered to election officials.
In Madison, city workers erected Plexiglas barriers to protect poll workers, and voters were encouraged to bring their own pens to mark the ballots.
State GOP Chairman Andrew Hitt downplayed the health concerns, noting that Wisconsin residents are still going to the grocery store, the liquor store and even boating stores classified as essential businesses.
“This isn’t New York City,” he said.
Democrats in and out of Wisconsin wanted the contest to be postponed, yet Republicans — and the conservative-majority state Supreme Court — would not give in. The fight over whether to postpone the election, as more than a dozen states have done, was colored by a state Supreme Court election also being held Tuesday. A lower turnout was thought to benefit the conservative candidate.
Trump on Tuesday broke from health experts who have encouraged all Americans to stay home by calling on his supporters to “get out and vote NOW” for the conservative judicial candidate, Daniel Kelly.
He reiterated his support for Kelly later in the day and suggested Democrats were simply playing politics by trying to postpone the election.
“As soon as I endorsed him, the Wisconsin Democrats said, ‘Oh, let’s move the election two months later,’” Trump said. “Now they talk about, ‘Oh safety, safety.’”
The Democrats on Wisconsin’s presidential primary ballot, meanwhile, were discouraging in-person voting.
Sanders said that holding the election was “dangerous” and “may very well prove deadly.” He did not encourage his supporters to vote in person. Biden has largely avoided discussion of the Wisconsin contest in recent days, instructing his supporters only to “follow the science.”