Wary voters clad in masks waited in long, socially distanced lines across Wisconsin on Tuesday amid a political firestorm over whether the state’s election should have been held in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic that has left Americans in 42 states ordered to stay home.
With Republicans insisting democracy go on and Democrats calling the exercise reckless, Wisconsinites who had not already voted absentee by mail faced the choice between running the risk of contracting the highly contagious COVID-19 at the polls or abandoning their right to vote.
Those who did venture out under Wisconsin’s “safer at home” order cast ballots in what became a ghost Democratic presidential primary between former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Both candidates bunkered in their East Coast homes, unable to campaign in what will be a critical Midwestern swing state in the November election against Republican President Donald Trump.
The missed opportunity: two or three solid weeks of stumping by the candidates in the state, a build-out of critical on-the-ground campaign infrastructure and a key moment for Democrats to connect with voters in a battleground state that was key to delivering the presidency to Trump four years ago.
In fact, by the time the polls opened, the presidential campaigns and many Democrats had abandoned any effort to get out the vote, not wanting to encourage people to risk their health to cast a ballot. As voters waited in line at the polls, health officials announced Wisconsin’s coronavirus death toll had risen to 94 with 2,578 known cases of COVID-19.
Like Democrats, Republicans had urged voters to request and mail in absentee ballots, but many insisted steps had been taken to ensure polling places were safe, with GOP state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos even volunteering to work one.
With thousands of local races on the ballot across Wisconsin, including a highly contested state Supreme Court race, Republicans and Democrats alike missed out on a window to bolster their efforts to identify new voters they can turn out in the fall.
In the presidential primary, Biden entered the contest with a nearly insurmountable national delegate lead and is considered a heavy favorite in Wisconsin, despite the fact Sanders won the state easily in 2016. However the vote transpires, no results will be released until next Monday under one of the many court orders issued in the legal brouhaha that ran right up until just hours before the polls opened.
From LaCrosse to Sheboygan, Tuesday became, in many ways, a lost election.
“I think there are lost opportunities and lost hopes all over the map here in Wisconsin,” said Charles Franklin, a political science scholar and director of polling at Marquette University Law School. “It’s a lost opportunity for the campaigns and both parties, but it’s also an important election that inevitably has become muddled by the circumstances it’s taking place in.”
‘This is ridiculous’
Wisconsin’s election almost wasn’t on Tuesday.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers issued an executive order Monday to delay the election until June 9 to protect the health of the state’s citizens. Hours later, the state Supreme Court’s conservative majority overruled Evers, determining the governor had overstepped his constitutional authority.
Adding another setback for Democrats, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 conservative majority on Monday evening overturned a lower court’s ruling that gave voters in the state more time to receive and send in the mail-in absentee ballots. With most voters wanting to stay home and both parties pushing the absentee option, local election clerks received an unprecedented crush of more than 1.28 million requests for the mail-in ballots.
According to state election data, at least 9,000 of the ballots had not been mailed out by Election Day, making it impossible for those voters to exercise the absentee option, since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling required the ballots to be postmarked by Election Day or dropped off in person by 8 p.m. Tuesday.
There also were numerous reports of voters showing up at the polls after not receiving absentee ballots. Many of them said they requested absentee ballots last month and that the state’s elections website indicated they had been sent one in the mail when they, in fact, had not. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that at least 50 voters had reached out to the newspaper with that concern, with some local clerks responding that they did not have records of voters’ requests for the ballots.
Complicating matters further was a statewide poll worker shortage, with many of the typically elderly volunteers who are most at risk of dying from COVID-19 saying they would not work. That led election officials to dramatically reduce the number of polling locations. Even then, election officials had to tap some 2,000 members of the Wisconsin National Guard called up by Evers to help work the remaining election sites.
Milwaukee has accounted for more than half of the state’s coronavirus deaths, with the city’s predominantly black North Side hit the hardest. Even so, when the polls opened at a pair of voting locations there, hundreds of voters were spaced out in long lines snaking down sidewalks, according to various reports and social media posts.
Photos of a woman waiting in line at Milwaukee’s Washington High School wearing a mask and holding a cardboard sign that read, “THIS IS RIDICULOUS” circulated on social media.
At the city’s Hamilton High School, a line of several hundred people ran through a parking lot and down several sidewalks to encompass an entire block. Orange cones were set out every 6 feet for voters to keep the recommended social distance, although there were far more voters than markers.
By evening the Milwaukee lines remained long with voters in some cases waiting more than two hours, some of them huddled under umbrellas as it poured rain and hailed.
In Green Bay, where the city’s 31 polling sites had been reduced to just two high school gymnasiums, social media posts showed similarly long lines. In Madison, home to the state Capitol and thousands of state workers who had been asked to work the polls, 66 locations remained open with reports of no lines at many of them. There also were reports of shorter wait times in smaller towns and suburban areas. Some cities, such as Beloit, opted to use drive-thru voting where voters were handed ballots in their cars.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission stated in a blog post that there were no reports of any polling places being unable to open, despite the unprecedented challenges. At some sites, temporary sinks were set up outside for hand-washing, plastic cough and sneeze guards were erected in front of poll workers and tape on tables marked where voters should place their IDs, while similar marks on the floor measured out the 6-foot separation required while voters waited in line. Most of them wore masks.
In preparation for the pandemic primary, the elections commission distributed to the polling sites some 6,000 liters of hand sanitizer, 10,000 spray bottles of sanitizer, 750,000 isopropyl wipes and 1 million ballpoint pens — enough for each voter to use their own.
Vos, the Republican assembly speaker, posted photos on Facebook showing him working a Racine County polling place wearing a plastic gown over his clothes and a mask. “Working the polls in Racine County today,” Vos wrote. “An impressive amount of planning and organization went into ensuring everyone can safely exercise their right to vote.”
The governor expressed more caution, but nonetheless lauded voters and poll workers.
“Although I remain deeply concerned about the public health implications of voting in-person today, I am overwhelmed by the bravery, resilience and heroism of those who are defending our democracy by showing up to vote, working the polls and reporting on this election,” Evers said. “Thank you for giving our state something to be proud of today. Please stay as safe as possible, Wisconsin.”
Former first lady Michelle Obama also preached caution, tweeting, “If you have an absentee ballot, make sure to drop it off or mail it in today. If you are going to vote in person, make sure to prioritize your safety and the safety of others.”
There was no such caution from Trump. For the second straight day, the president weighed in on the state’s hotly contested Supreme Court race between Daniel Kelly, whom former Republican Gov. Scott Walker appointed to finish a term, and Judge Jill Karofsky, who is backed by Evers and Democrats.
“Wisconsin, get out and vote NOW for Justice Kelly,” Trump tweeted. “Protect your 2nd Amendment!”
Biden vs. Sanders
In the final days leading up to the primary, both the Biden and Sanders campaigns called off their get-out-the-vote efforts, although the Vermont senator was more vocal in his opposition to holding the election.
“It’s outrageous that the Republican legislative leaders and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court in Wisconsin are willing to risk the health and safety of many thousands of Wisconsin voters for their own political gain,” Sanders said in a statement. “Let’s be clear: holding this election amid the coronavirus outbreak is dangerous, disregards the guidance of public health experts, and may very well prove deadly.”
Biden did not offer any public comment in reaction to the governor’s order to postpone the election or the court’s decision to overturn it. Last week, he was asked in a virtual news conference whether in-person voting should be held, and expressed confidence in sanitizing polling stations and having voters take social distancing measures while voting.
“I think it could be done,” Biden said, while noting it would be “for the Wisconsin folks and the courts to decide.”
In the run-up to the primary, both candidates largely emphasized a national message focused on how best to respond to the pandemic while criticizing the Trump administration’s handling of the crisis. There were no digital events focused on Wisconsin voters from either campaign, and the candidates made little mention of the contest with the exception of Biden and Sanders both endorsing a pair of education referendums in Milwaukee and Racine.
Even though the voting will conclude Tuesday, no results will be reported. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling upheld a lower court’s decision that no results should be reported until after the deadline for election officials to receive ballots expires Monday at 4 p.m.
Biden entered the Wisconsin primary with a nearly insurmountable delegate lead over Sanders, 1,217 to 914 with 1,991 needed to clinch the nomination. While Sanders has remained in the race, Biden already has moved on to the vetting process for his vice presidential nominee.
Many of the remaining primaries have been pushed deep into the spring or have been converted entirely to mail-in ballots. If Sanders were to suffer a sizable defeat to Biden in Wisconsin, the chorus among Democrats urging him to end his campaign and unite the party would continue to grow louder.
A new Marquette University Law School poll found Biden with a significant advantage in Wisconsin ahead of the primary, with 62% of voters backing the former vice president compared with 32% for Sanders. The poll’s margin of error was 4 percentage points.
That survey is a dramatic reversal from the previous Marquette poll taken in February just before the South Carolina primary, when Sanders held a 29% to 15% lead over Biden in the state. Franklin, the poll’s director, said that “more than usual caution should be applied” in predicting an outcome in the race, given the uncertainty about turnout, absentee ballots and the known enthusiasm and dedication of Sanders’ supporters. But he also emphasized Sanders’ support had barely grown despite the field shrinking dramatically since February.
The poll served as a forecast of sorts for what promises to be a bruising general election battle. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Trump’s approval rating in the state has held remarkably steady at 48% in January, February and in this latest survey. About 85% of Republicans approved of Trump’s performance in office compared with 59% among independents and 10% of Democrats.
However, the poll found Wisconsin voters favor their governor’s response to the virus far more than Trump’s, with 76% approving of Evers’ handling of the pandemic compared with just 51% for Trump. The Democratic governor’s overall job approval jumped 14 points in the last month while Trump’s did not move.
Democrats have made Wisconsin a cornerstone of their 2020 efforts, including scheduling the Democratic National Convention for July in Milwaukee. The party recently delayed the convention by more than a month until Aug. 16, and Biden repeatedly has said the event may need to be held virtually.
In the poll, 62% believed the convention should not be held in person compared with just 22% who believed it should. Not being able to hold the marquee event in the swing state would mark another lost opportunity in the state, just as Tuesday’s election largely was for both parties.
“Wisconsin would have been the center of a hard-fought, late-season Democratic primary, which would have brought attention, campaigning here and familiarity with the candidates building organizations. Almost all of that is now lost,” Franklin said. “And both parties have lost the chance to use Wisconsin as an early trial of how well their voter identification and get out the vote efforts are working, because all of these complications came into play.
“None of that happened.”
Twitter @BillRuthhart
