On Tuesday, voters decided an election for a place on Wisconsin's Supreme Court, which has become a highly politicized body over the past couple decades. The Democratic governor of Wisconsin ordered that the election be postponed until a plan could be put in place to provide a safe and secure election amid the pandemic. The US Supreme Court, in a party line 5-4 decision, demanded that the election take place as scheduled. Here is the result.
Here’s What Voters Told Us About Voting In Wisconsin’s Primary | FiveThirtyEight
"Across the state, a shortage of poll workers led to the closure and consolidation of many polling places, which resulted in extremely long lines on Election Day."
"Milwaukee — a city of almost 600,000 people — had just five polling places open (in normal circumstances, it would have 180 polling places). As a result, wait times in Milwaukee averaged an hour and a half to two hours, with some voters waiting as long as two and a half hours to cast their ballots"
"In Green Bay, a city of 105,000 that downsized from 31 polling places to just two, some voters waited nearly three hours."
"in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, which was forced to consolidate to one polling place for its population of 70,000."
"Plenty of voters (1,287,764, at last count) attempted to avoid the inconvenience and dangers of in-person voting by voting absentee — but they weren’t immune from problems either. Because local election officials have been overwhelmed by the number of absentee-ballot requests, there was a backlog in sending them out — with the result that, as of Tuesday, many voters still had not received absentee ballots that they requested even weeks in advance. The Milwaukee Election Commission alone received hundreds of phone calls from voters who said their absentee ballots never arrived."
"This might not have been a problem either had the U.S. Supreme Court not ruled late on Monday that absentee ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday, April 7, in order to count. (Previously, a federal district judge had decreed that ballots would count as long as they were received by April 13, even if they were postmarked after Election Day.) But the Supreme Court’s decision essentially forced voters who had not yet received their ballots to either brave the in-person polling places on Tuesday or abstain from voting altogether."
"it’s possible there were dramatic disparities in voter access across the state, and that could end up affecting the outcome of the election."
Here’s What Voters Told Us About Voting In Wisconsin’s Primary | FiveThirtyEight
"Across the state, a shortage of poll workers led to the closure and consolidation of many polling places, which resulted in extremely long lines on Election Day."
"Milwaukee — a city of almost 600,000 people — had just five polling places open (in normal circumstances, it would have 180 polling places). As a result, wait times in Milwaukee averaged an hour and a half to two hours, with some voters waiting as long as two and a half hours to cast their ballots"
"In Green Bay, a city of 105,000 that downsized from 31 polling places to just two, some voters waited nearly three hours."
"in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha, which was forced to consolidate to one polling place for its population of 70,000."
"Plenty of voters (1,287,764, at last count) attempted to avoid the inconvenience and dangers of in-person voting by voting absentee — but they weren’t immune from problems either. Because local election officials have been overwhelmed by the number of absentee-ballot requests, there was a backlog in sending them out — with the result that, as of Tuesday, many voters still had not received absentee ballots that they requested even weeks in advance. The Milwaukee Election Commission alone received hundreds of phone calls from voters who said their absentee ballots never arrived."
"This might not have been a problem either had the U.S. Supreme Court not ruled late on Monday that absentee ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday, April 7, in order to count. (Previously, a federal district judge had decreed that ballots would count as long as they were received by April 13, even if they were postmarked after Election Day.) But the Supreme Court’s decision essentially forced voters who had not yet received their ballots to either brave the in-person polling places on Tuesday or abstain from voting altogether."
"it’s possible there were dramatic disparities in voter access across the state, and that could end up affecting the outcome of the election."
Last edited:
