In-person voting did not cause spike in Wisconsin
The claim: “If you look at Wisconsin, I’ve yet to see a spike or anything that anybody has said was statistically significant related to the fact that they had voting.” — Texas U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin.
Roy made the statement during a May 6 video interview with the Texas Tribune as he discussed the novel coronavirus outbreak in Texas and spoke about a number of policies under consideration — including whether mail-in voting should be expanded for the general election in November.
Wisconsin’s presidential primary election was held April 7, after a legal fight and much public debate about whether it was safe for voters to go to the polls in the middle of the pandemic.
PolitiFact rating: Mostly True. Wisconsin has linked 67 coronavirus cases to its April 7 primary election, a small fraction of the state’s total cases. But the data is limited. Health officials said there is significant uncertainty surrounding these figures, and the election’s true impact might be impossible to determine.
Discussion: Citing concerns about voter fraud, Roy said it doesn’t make sense to “flip our system on its head and convert to all, or significant, mail voting” or online voting.
Instead, he said state officials should find a way to make inperson voting safe by the time the November election rolls around. He pointed to Wisconsin as evidence that in-person voting could be safe, even during a pandemic.
Evan Smith, chief executive officer of the Texas Tribune, interjected and said: “In fact, the Wisconsin Health Department said that 36 people at least are believed to have gotten the virus as a consequence of voting in person. There has been reporting on this.”
Roy replied: “I’ve looked at that report, and I’ve looked at studies and I’ve not seen any significant study that has shown a spike as a result of their election. By the way, that was in the heat of the initial outbreak a few weeks ago. What we’re talking about is laying out a system where this can work, and we’ve got until November to do it.”
In the weeks since April 7, health experts in Wisconsin have attempted to track the number of COVID-19 cases with links to the election.
The tally includes people who tested positive for COVID-19 after April 9 who reported having voted in person or who worked at the polls on the day of the election. The tally does not include people who voted or worked the polls but started to display symptoms after April 21.
About 40 cases were initially linked to the election. As of May 7, Wisconsin had identified 67
people who fit this criteria, according to Jennifer Miller, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
But that does not guarantee that these individuals contracted the virus while voting, a point state health officials have emphasized.
In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , Darren Rausch, lead for the Milwaukee County COVID-19 Epidemiology Intel Team, said the election’s timing makes it difficult to link cases to the voting.
“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-athome order,” he said. “So that was complicating our work from the beginning.”
On election day, an estimated 413,000 people voted in person across Wisconsin, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Experts said a surge tied to the election would have appeared in statewide data at the end of April, given the incubation period of the coronavirus. But no surge appeared.
Public figures have repeatedly tried to connect trends in coronavirus cases in Wisconsin with the election, but other factors have impacted the data. On April 22, the state saw a spike in cases, but the spike was tied to outbreaks at meatpacking plants in the state — not the election.