You might be surprised to learn that there is still a presidential primary occurring next Tuesday in Wisconsin, despite practically every other state having already moved its primary to late May or June out of concerns for voters and poll workers being exposed to coronavirus.
Even the Democratic National Committee postponed its July 13 nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to August 17 today. Democrats postpone presidential convention until August 17.
The “official” excuse given by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin state legislature (the power to delay an election in Wisconsin rests with the state legislature) is that “moving the voting date so late in the process would sow confusion and create a leadership vacuum in cities and towns holding contests for municipal posts that will be vacant as early as mid-April” (what they really mean is that there is a hotly contested state supreme court race they badly want to win: see below). Wisconsin goes it alone, holding elections next week amid fears of infection and voting chaos:
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.
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.
Critics say the decision threatens the integrity and fairness of the vote. They predict that thousands of voters will be unable to cast ballots either because polling locations will be closed or because they were unable to navigate the unfamiliar and complex process of voting by mail.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has called on the Wisconsin Army National Guard to fill in for poll workers who will not be showing up on Tuesday. Wisconsin’s Primary Next Week Is Going to Be a Catastrophe:
A Tuesday court filing showed that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has called the Wisconsin Army National Guard to help at the polls because of the pandemic, a move his own attorney expected “will not satisfy all of the current staffing needs.”
[According to a court filing from the governor’s attorney, by Tuesday 111 municipalities weren’t able to “staff even one polling place,” while 126 municipalities claimed they couldn’t “staff all normal polling places.”]
[A document from the Wisconsin Elections Commission released Tuesday showing that close to “60 percent of Wisconsin municipalities report a shortage of poll workers.”]
Gerry Lisi, the head of the Barron County Democratic Party, described talking to clerks who are “scared silly” ahead of the contest. And he can’t imagine how in-person voting will be pulled off.
“I think it will happen,” Lisi said. “I think we’ll regret it. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do, but I’m kind of resigned to it.”
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As of Wednesday, the state’s election commission reported there were more than 1 million absentee-ballot requests for the spring election. The Democratic primary isn’t the only contest on the Wisconsin ballot, which also includes voting on other local candidates and an important state Supreme Court race.
Craig Brooks, the Buffalo County Democratic Party chairman, is concerned that “lots of people are just not going to vote because they don’t want to fool around with it right now.”
And he’s far more worried about the state Supreme Court race than the presidential contest.
“In my opinion, that’s the least important part of the April 7 election,” Brooks said of the Biden/Sanders matchup.
Daniel Jacobson, a former Obama White House lawyer, has a theory that cuts to the heart of the matter of what Mr. Brooks is talking about:
As The Post reports:
Democrats and voting activists have accused GOP lawmakers of trying to suppress voter turnout intentionally to help an incumbent candidate for the state Supreme Court, conservative Justice Daniel Kelly, win reelection.
“They have cynically calculated that lower turnout will help the conservative candidate,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, a government watchdog group.
Republicans have disputed that, saying they do not want voters to be confused by a shift in Election Day. But in late 2018, they considered changing the date of the Democratic presidential primary, which was expected to draw high turnout, to protect Kelly’s candidacy. At the time, Fitzgerald said that moving the Democratic contest to March would give the justice a “better chance” of winning.
* * *
Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said Republican unwillingness to make changes this year, combined with their very different approach to the election before the coronavirus pandemic threatened turnout, is enough to question their motives.
“None of the explanations Republicans are giving in Wisconsin for opposing expanded access to absentee voting are even facially plausible,” Wikler said. “Rural voters as well as urban, older voters as well as college students — everyone is hurt by intensively restrictive absentee voting rules in the era of covid.”
Wikler rejected a claim by Vos that extending early in-person voting through the coming weekend would cause confusion.
He also noted that the state GOP on Friday sued clerks in the state’s two biggest counties — which include Madison and Milwaukee — after they announced that they would allow homebound voters to check a box on their absentee ballot applications labeled “indefinitely confined,” which would allow them to skip a cumbersome process of uploading an image of their photo ID.
“I’ve been getting calls and calls from seniors who are having trouble requesting their absentee ballot because they can’t upload their photo ID,” said Scott McDonell, the Dane County clerk. “They have no idea how to do that. They are afraid to go out, and they shouldn’t go out to try to photocopy it.”
Several lawsuits have been filed by voting rights groups and state elections officials. As indicated above, those election cases were consolidated and heard by U.S. District Judge William Conley on Wednesday. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports, Federal judge blisters Gov. Tony Evers and GOP lawmakers for not delaying Wisconsin’s election:
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.
The integrity and legitimacy of this election is already in doubt. This goes to show you what extreme lengths to which Republicans will go to steal an election. Remember that Wisconsin is a key swing state in November. This is a preview of coming attractions.
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.
Conley was unsparing in his criticism of Evers and Republicans who control the Legislature, saying they should be protecting the public during a worldwide pandemic that has killed nearly 47,000 people and shut down large parts of the economy.
He compared running an election during the coronavirus outbreak to conducting one during a deadly storm.
“You expect the State of Wisconsin to realize this is a hurricane and prevent (the election) and stop it for public health reasons,” he said.
But Conley said he’s limited in what he can do.
“I don’t see a basis on which I can stop this, albeit it’s a very risky decision by the State of Wisconsin,” he said.
Evers, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester have repeatedly said the election should be kept on schedule and clerks should try to do the best they can with difficult circumstances. For weeks they have urged people to vote by mail instead of going to the polls on election day.
This is not entirely accurate. As The Post reports:
Gov. Evers did ask this month for mail ballots to be sent to every registered voter. He also asked the legislature to lift photo ID requirements for mail-in voters, extend in-person early voting through the final weekend before the election and move back the deadlines for returning absentee ballots, as well as counting them.
Republican lawmakers said no to all of it, infusing an already fraught situation with rancorous partisan undertones.
Evers said late Wednesday he wanted to change how the election was conducted but didn’t have the power to do it on his own. Fitzgerald said Evers and other Democrats were acting like cowards by claiming their options for handling the election are limited.
On Tuesday’s ballot is the presidential primary, a crime victims rights amendment to the state constitution and elections for state Supreme Court and local offices. Thursday is the last day to request an absentee ballot.
Election officials, meanwhile, warned that without changes voters and poll workers could be sickened and ballots could go uncounted.
“In my opinion, the (Wisconsin Elections) Commission knows there are going to be many, many ballots that are legitimate that aren’t going to be counted” unless voting rules change, said Mark Thomsen, a Democrat who sits on the commission.
“We really are at a crisis here.”
Decision to come soon
Conley, who was put on the bench by President Barack Obama, suggested he would make some changes to Wisconsin’s voting policies, such as by allowing absentee ballots to be counted if they arrive in clerks’ offices after election day, provided they are postmarked by then.
He also raised the possibility of allowing some absentee voters to have their ballots counted without the signature of a witness. But he said he was inclined to allow that only in limited cases and he expressed skepticism at the notion of suspending the state’s voter ID law, noting it has survived a litany of court challenges.
“That argument has been made and lost in court,” he said.
Conley is considering the case amid a severe shortage of poll workers that has forced some communities to greatly reduce the number of polling places they have.
Meagan Wolfe, the head of the state Elections Commission, raised the prospect in court testimony that some voters may have to go to a different town on election day because no one will be willing to work the polls in their own municipality.
A shrinking number of polling sites will increase the chances of long lines even though people are supposed to stay away from one another. Milwaukee, which ordinarily has 180 polling locations, could have fewer than a dozen for this election — and as many as 50,000 voters could show up at them, according to the Milwaukee Election Commission.
More than a million absentee ballots have been requested in Wisconsin — a record number that clerks have not been able to keep up with. Under the law, ballots must be returned by election day, but clerks fear they may not get many of them because of slow mail service.
Conley is weighing three legal challenges that he has combined into one case. The most sweeping of them — brought by Souls to the Polls and other voter mobilization groups — is asking to postpone the election.
Conley repeatedly expressed reservations Wednesday about going that far, saying those bringing the lawsuit wanted him to halt the election because they believed turnout would be abysmal, especially among minorities.
“Maybe you’re right, but why wouldn’t I under principles of federalism allow the state to try it?” Conley said. “And the only reason is because it’s a really bad public policy idea and (state officials) should stop it for health reasons.”
Republican leaders are not taking coronavirus seriously:
In comments to reporters Wednesday before the hearing, Vos and Fitzgerald said they felt safe at the polls. Vos plans to work as a poll worker Tuesday.
“I would certainly say that I feel safe being there because of the safeguards that are being put in place,” Vos said. “If you’re bored at home and you’re sick of watching Netflix, volunteer to go and help at the polls.”
Wisconsin citizens disagree. The Post reports:
More than 60 percent, or about 800, of Wisconsin’s jurisdictions have reported they are short a total of 7,000 poll workers — 111 of those jurisdictions “critically” short, without enough workers to open a single polling location on Tuesday, according to the Wisconsin Election Commission. Some cities and towns are offering a single location instead of the usual 10 or 15. And the consolidations have raised concerns about unsafe longer lines.
The commission staff tried to procure hand sanitizer for every polling location but, due to a national shortage, contracted with local distilleries to produce alcohol-based sanitizer. Each polling location will receive two liters of it.
The commission also was unable to secure personal protective gear for poll workers despite numerous requests. But it did order 1.5 million pens, allowing voters to receive a clean pen to sign in and vote.
“It’s extraordinarily frustrating when people’s health and their lives are at stake,” said McDonell, the Dane County clerk, explaining how much he has struggled to ask people to work on Tuesday. “We’re at that point where you can start to see the acceleration in the number of cases locally, where it’s doubling and doubling and doubling. Before, the angel of death was on its way. Now, it’s passing over your house.”
No one should accept the integrity and legitimacy of this election in Wisconsin.
UPDATE: The Washington Post reports, Federal judge declines to postpone April 7 presidential primaries in Wisconsin:
U.S. District Judge William M. Conley on Thursday declined to postpone Wisconsin’s scheduled April 7 presidential primaries amid widespread worries that holding elections during the coronavirus pandemic could risk public health and curtail access to the polls.
[I]n a 53-page ruling, Conley extended the deadline for absentee ballots to be requested by voters from Thursday to Friday, and extended the deadline for completed ballots to be received by local election officials by six days: from 8 p.m. on April 7 to 4 p.m. on April 13.
He also prohibited the state from enforcing the requirement that absentee ballot envelopes bear a witness signature when voters include a statement that they were unable to obtain one safely.
Conley made clear that he disagreed with the state’s decision to go forward with the election, but he explained that he was constrained to consider only the constitutional rights of voters — not public health.
“Without doubt, the April 7 election day will create unprecedented burdens not just for aspiring voters, but also for poll workers, clerks, and indeed the state,” Conley wrote. “As much as the court would prefer that the Wisconsin Legislature and Governor consider the public health ahead of any political considerations, that does not appear in the cards. Nor is it appropriate for a federal-district court to act as the state’s chief health official by taking that step for them.”
New projections place April 7 near the peak of Wisconsin’s coronavirus outbreak.
Conley reserved the right to judge that voters’ rights have been infringed — something that he said could not be assessed until Election Day.
It is unclear what action he would take if he concluded that, as he wrote, “the actual voter turnout, ability to vote on election day or overall conduct of the election and counting votes timely has undermined citizens’ right to vote.”
A lawyer for the Republican National Committee and the Wisconsin Republican Party, Patrick Strawbridge, filed a notice of appeal soon after Conley issued his opinion. The Republican legislature filed an appeal Thursday, too.
“It is unprecedented to allow votes to be cast after Election Day has already occurred, and we are appealing the judge’s decision in order to uphold the integrity of our elections,” RNC national press secretary Mandi Merritt said in a statement.
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