Milwaukee County to put $50,000 more into voter education.
Supervisors debate purge of voter rolls in state
A measure to put an additional $50,000 toward voter registration and voter education prompted a nearly hour-long, heated debate among county supervisors Thursday over a larger effort to quickly purge the state’s voter rolls of people who were believed to have moved.
In October, state election officials sent letters asking more than 230,000 people to update their voter registrations because they were believed to have moved.
Officials estimate that more than one in 10 of Milwaukee’s registered voters would be affected.
Supervisor Deanna Alexander, who also works as the administrator/clerk/ treasurer for the Village of Newburg, was one of three supervisors who voted against the measure.
She said she had a hard time understanding the rationale for keeping voters registered in a ward where they don’t respond to a letter asking them to update their voter registrations. If they want to vote in a future election, it should be from the new address, she said.
Alexander also said the reason for the voter registration list is to know who is allowed to vote and who isn’t.
Her comments met with push back from her colleagues.
County Board Chairman Theodore Lipscomb Sr., the measure’s lead sponsor, said there are many hypothetical reasons a voter might not have responded to the mailing.
“The primary question we’re asking is, what’s the urgency to strike people who may in fact still be there or otherwise wish to vote?” he said, noting the presidential election coming this year.
Supervisor Sequanna Taylor said it was a “slap in the face” that the controversy over the voter purge came at the same meeting as a Black History Month presentation on the theme “African Americans and the Vote.” At that presentation, she noted, Supervisor Willie Johnson Jr. had spoken to the array of efforts to prevent African Americans from voting throughout history and today.
“The point is that there’s always a struggle,” Johnson said during the presentation. “Something’s given, it’s take away. Something’s given, it’s take away. Why do African Americans and persons of color have to be second-, third-, fourth-class citizens? Why?”
He urged people to vote.
“The most precious right of a citizen in a democracy is the right to vote,” he said.
Taylor said she moved and never received the letter saying she was one of the voters who had been flagged to potentially be removed from the state’s voter rolls. She found out when she was contacted by a reporter.
“She didn’t get one piece of mail,” Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic said.
Supervisor Patti Logsdon said she sees efforts to encourage people to vote at city halls and other places and doesn’t believe spending the additional $50,000 is necessary.
In response to Logsdon, Supervisor Marcelia Nicholson said she wanted to remind her colleagues that their districts do not mirror each other in terms of the resources of their residents.
“We cannot expect that they all have access to the same engagement and education because they do not,” she said.
Nicholson also noted that the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty backed three voters in bringing the lawsuit that argues that voters had to be removed from the rolls if they had not acted within 30 days of the letters being sent.
A large portion of voters will be purged in the city of Milwaukee and in Milwaukee County, where many people of color live and where largely Democratic voters reside, she said.
Supervisors voted to adopt the measure 14-3, with Supervisors Alexander, Dan Sebring and Logsdon voting against it.
The measure brought the total county funding for the effort to $100,000.
Health and Human Services relocation explored
The Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services is looking to relocate employees from three locations, a move partly prompted by the plan to close the Behavioral Health Division’s Mental Health Complex in Wauwatosa.
The Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division’s board has contracted with Universal Health Services, which plans to build a behavioral health hospital in West Allis. The Mental Health Complex’s inpatient unit is scheduled to close next year. The county eventually plans to sell the complex.
That means moving 150 to 200 people to a new location.
The plan is also aimed at addressing challenges with accessibility for people with disabilities who visit the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center.
DHHS Director Mary Jo Meyers told the county’s Health and Human Needs Committee that people with disabilities are using freight elevators to get the assistance they need and to participate in meetings in which their voices should be heard.
Bringing the Coggs building into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act was estimated to cost $4.5 million more than a decade ago, she told the committee.
The department is looking to move employees from the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center, Vel Phillips Youth and Family Justice Center and the Behavioral Health Division Mental Health Complex.
The department is looking for space in the city of Milwaukee for 400 to 450 employees.
It is looking for a total of about 71,000 square feet.
DHHS leaders hope to begin the site search in early summer this year and ultimately relocate staff at the end of next year. The full project is estimated to cost about $8.2 million.