Wisconsin’s Mid-Pandemic Election: What Officials Said the Day After

The scenes at the polls during Wisconsin’s unprecedented mid-pandemic election were very different depending on where you were. That’s what a team of student journalists learned when they spanned out to interview election officials – including county and city clerks and poll workers – throughout the state on the day after the election.

In the Milwaukee area, where there were long lines and polling places shrank from the typical 180 to five, some officials felt the Legislature’s decision to push forward with the election endangered public safety. “Nobody should be forced to potentially risk their health or even their life to vote,” Milwaukee County’s Clerk George Christenson said in an interview with student journalist Destiny DeVooght. “We are the only state that did this, and it’s sad that Republicans chose winning an election over the health of our citizens.” There were also long lines in Green Bay.

However, in other jurisdictions, clerks and election officials told the student journalists the election unfolded relatively smoothly. “Overall, I think elections in the city of Appleton went about as well as it could given the circumstances,” said Kami Lynch, City Clerk for the City of Appleton, to student journalist Hannah Borchert. “I was pleased with the safety measures taken, who we got to staff the polling places and all of their work to facilitate voting during this challenging time.”

Here’s what the student journalists learned:

Milwaukee County’s Clerk

The election on Tuesday was unprecedented. With lines that stretched for several blocks and results being held until the following week, Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson says the election should have been postponed.

As county clerk, Christenson does not personally work at any polling places in Milwaukee, but his office is responsible for providing municipalities with personal protective equipment (PPE) and pens for poll workers. In some cases, he dropped off PPE himself to ensure social distancing.

“Nobody should be forced to potentially risk their health or even their life to vote,” Christenson said in an interview on Wednesday. “We are the only state that did this, and it’s sad that Republicans chose winning an election over the health of our citizens.”

According to Christenson, municipalities reported that social distancing was enforced once in the building, but voters had to do their best on their own while waiting outside in long lines.

An afternoon rain shower on the East Side of Milwaukee didn’t stop voters waiting in line outside of Riverside High School. Christenson says that people came out of their homes with homemade ponchos made out of garbage bags for voters to keep dry.

“It just shows that when things get tough, people want to help their neighbors,” Christenson said.

Christenson expects to see a spike in COVID-19 cases in Milwaukee County after the election, and while he says he gives Gov. Tony Evers credit for trying at the last minute, he suspects the damage has been done.

-Destiny DeVooght

City of Waukesha’s Clerk Treasurer

The City of Waukesha held April 7 voting at one polling place, the Schuetze Recreation Center, as opposed to its usual 15 sites. According to Clerk Treasurer Sandy Policello, this consolidation allowed for adequate staffing throughout the election day.

Policello didn’t say whether or not she believed in-person voting should have been suspended. “We just had to deal with what we were dealt with,” she said. “Considering that, I think it went well. We didn’t have lines too often out the door, so I think we’re pretty fortunate that way.”

Policello said the City of Waukesha Police and Fire Departments provided masks and gloves for both poll workers and voters. They used cones to indicate six-foot spacings, and door monitors controlled how many people entered the building at once.

Curbside voting and absentee ballot drop-off was also available, according to Policello. A few people requested to vote curbside.

Policello affirmed that social distancing was generally successful. “We received a lot of compliments, and people were happy with how it went,” she said.

-Jessica Gatzow

Appleton County Clerk

“Overall, I think elections in the city of Appleton went about as well as it could given the circumstances,” said Kami Lynch, City Clerk for the City of Appleton. “I was pleased with the safety measures taken, who we got to staff the polling places and all of their work to facilitate voting during this challenging time.”

Only 35-40 of the usual election staff worked yesterday’s election, and Lynch said for an election of that size there are normally around 125 workers. City workers joined the election staff along with 45 National Guard members and new volunteers who joined to help the cause.

“A lot of the poll workers were brand new this time, but we did what we could to get them trained and they did a really good job,” said Lynch.

Safety was a concern for Lynch. She said that they worked closely with their health officer and had guidance from the election commission and the CDC regarding how to best set up the polling places for maximum safety.

Lines were marked off on the floor where voters could stand, so they were six feet apart. Only a small number of workers were allowed into the polling room locations at a time to follow social distancing requirements.

The facilities department made strands of plexiglass to put in front of workers for barriers. Wipes and alcohol sprays to sanitize equipment throughout the day were also provided. Gloves were used by workers and voters. Many masks were also donated to the Appleton polls.

“We also had precautions in place so that voters wouldn’t have to touch the equipment. They could use a glove to sign the badger book and hold a stylus which could be sanitized instead of just using their fingers to sign the badger book,” said Lynch. “And then the pens that they were given to vote, we asked that they took those with them or threw them away, so there wasn’t a lot of cross contamination.”

A large amount of Appleton voting was done through absentee ballots, but the poll workers indicated to Lynch that there was a steady flow of participation throughout the day.

“Overall, I think that the polling places were very safe plus we did keep all 15 polling places open, so that voters were dispersed among the 15 places versus all crammed into one space,” said Lynch.

Voting in Appleton went smoothly, according to Lynch. There were no major unforeseen issues. She described one unique difference from this election in comparison to previous elections other than safety precautions and participation.

“There were more phone calls to our office with more procedure questions, but we were able to walk them through things, and there weren’t any big issues that happened yesterday.”

-Hannah Borchert

West Bend’s City Clerk

Wisconsin was one of the only states that held its primary elections on Tuesday, and cities were very well prepared for large groups of people, including West Bend, WI. 

Stephanie Justmann is the city clerk for West Bend, WI, and she was very pleased with how in-person voting was handled in the city. 

“I thought it was handled as professionally as can be,” said Justmann. “People were given the safe circumstances to vote.” 

Workers were given the option to come in, according to Justmann.

“We had eight county employees and four state employees work the polls,” said Justmann.  “We also had National Guard workers there to help us out.” 

Due to the circumstances of COVID-19 and social distancing, West Bend saw a 9% voter turnout, or 17,874 registered voters, according to Justmann.   

Because of social distancing, several West Bend residents chose not to show up to the polls but rather do absentee ballots instead.

In April 2016, there were approximately 1,643 absentee ballots from West Bend residents, according to Justmann. This year, that number went up to about eight times as many to 8,100.

Despite the circumstances, West Bend residents still exercised their right to vote. Even though several of those voters were absentee, in-person voting was still handled very well by county, state and National Guard workers, she said.

-Sam Dehring

A Milwaukee Poll Worker Weighs In

People waited in line for over an hour and a half outside Milwaukee’s Riverside High School waiting to vote. As each person approached the entrance to the gymnasium, they were greeted by Tracey Sperko, who was wearing a medical gown, gloves and a face mask and squirting hand sanitizer into people’s hands. She stopped each person at the door and directed them to wait until the person in front of them moved forward to the next blue taped “X” on the gym floor six feet away.

Sperko is a 53-year-old registered nurse in Milwaukee. She said some people were staying six feet away from each other, but it was so crowded that she and other workers had to keep reminding people to keep their distance. She said that from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. they were constantly busy, and they needed more computers to register voters as well as more poll stations.

Sperko knows three people who have Covid-19, two in home quarantine and one who just left the ICU. She said the election should have been suspended because now more people are going to get sick and some will die.

“Risking lives during a pandemic was cruel, heartless and irresponsible,” Sperko said.

She has worked elections before but she said this time everything was different. Poll clerks looked like hospital workers, the set-up was different, the line was insanely long and people were afraid of getting sick.

“COVID-19 is serious,” Sperko said. “Now when our curve should be flattening, it will rise.”

-Adrian Hurd

Brown County Clerk

Sandy Juno, the Brown County Clerk’s Office, felt “I was in a rather controlled environment.”

Asked whether she was worried about her safety on election day, she said, “I think it’s a concern for everyone in our office, our building is closed down, so I didn’t get a lot of exposure.” She didn’t offer an opinion on the election going ahead, saying, “I really don’t have an opinion on it, my job is just to carry out to election whatever the court decided. They didn’t close them down, so we carried out the election. Had the cancelled to election, we would have abided by that.”

Asked whether she asked for help from the state, she said, “The state was pretty much on top of that; what they did early on is they asked what we would need as far as supplies and coordinated the purchase statewide. Those supplies were delivered to emergency management buildings set up through the state; ours came out of Oshkosh and our team from Brown County went and picked it up.” She said it was “Coordinated, organized to make sure they were safe on election day. In our office particularly we follow hand washing and sanitization codes and optional face masks.”

She added: “In Brown County, we were able to determine how many ballots were scanned, 23% of elidable voters in brown county came out. Another 11% of absentee ballots is predicted. Somewhere between 33 and 34% voter turnout. Well over all 23 out our 24 municipals did well.” She said they “utilized the National Guard. That I think really helped them control and monitor lines. One municipal had issues regarding long lines.”

As for social distancing, she said, “From what I had seen and heard people tried to practice it but, in some cases, I don’t know if it was always followed.”

She said the election was unusual because of “the number of court cases and lateness in the ruling put a lot of pressure on whatever the later ruling was. Most absentee ballots ever… we had a hot line; a lot of people hadn’t received their ballots. If they didn’t get their ballots on Tuesday, they wouldn’t have been able to vote.” She said voters offered different opinions:  “Some feel we shouldn’t have held the election; some people feel we should’ve moved forward and conducted the election as we normally would.”

-Allison Martens

Appleton Poll Worker

Appleton has around 10 confirmed cases of COVID-19 including one death. Although, the Coronavirus

didn’t stop Appleton citizens using their right to vote.

Deanna Johnston, a poll worker in Appleton, was suited up in gloves and a mask while helping Appleton

citizens get their votes in.

“I’ll admit that I’m scared… I’m 74-years-old and am scared of the Coronavirus. Although, I am a proud

American and want to help my fellow residents cast their vote,” said Johnston.

Johnston said there were a handful of voters who came in without masks or precaution, and it made her uncomfortable.

“I understand if you want to come out and vote since it’s your right as a citizen, although you should be

coming in with a mask… especially if we’re offering them at the front door.”

-Lexi Schroeder

Fond du Lac County Clerk

Lisa Freiberg is the county clerk for Fond du Lac County.

Freiberg has been working in the Clerk’s office since 1998 and has been the Fond du Lac County Clerk since she was elected in 2008. She says she’s never seen anything like this current pandemic.

As the official in charge of the county’s election preparation, this crisis has added a whole new element to her job. “Polling places were provided masks and gloves,” she said. “We had glass shields for our election officials.”

Only one polling location in city of Fond du Lac itself was consolidated. All the other normal locations were open as usual, according to Freiberg. Being able to avoid polling location closings helped contribute to the county’s 44% voter turnout.

“I’ve heard from the majority of my municipalities that there were little to no lines,” said Freiberg. Compared to the lines being seen in other parts of the state, Fond du Lac County was able to avoid that breaching of social distancing.

Freiberg also gave her reaction to the near postponement of the state spring election by Gov. Evers. “There were to many unknowns for him to postpone the election,” she said. “We don’t know what June 9 would have been.”

-Alex Thome

A Milwaukee Poll Worker

Despite the outbreak of coronavirus, the Wisconsin Legislature saw fit to go through with in-person voting for the election ballots during the first full week of April. Marshall High School in Milwaukee was a scene for in person voting.

Cody Olson, 21, was working the poll and handing out stickers for the participants after they had cast their vote. Cody was wearing rubber gloves and was following a strict guidelines on how to hand them out without much contact.

“I’m not worried at all about getting sick, I’ve always had a strong immune system and felt my services would be of help during this time,” said Olson.

This was the first time working at an election for Cody as he was filling in for employees who wanted to keep themselves distant from social activity. “This was a great opportunity for me to make some money during this down time, my family van needs repairs and I’m using this to help pay for them since so many jobs have been lost,” he said.

Olson was surprised about the amount of people who showed up to vote considering the pandemic taking place. “I thought it would have been a lot less busy considering it was in a high  school and there was an option for online voting, but I guess you can’t stop politics.”

Olson was surprised how friendly people were despite security trying to get people through quickly to maintain social distancing. He said over half the people that walked by expressed their gratitude for his work during this time. “All the respect I felt from people really enlightened me about how helping your community is better than any award I’ve received, while this virus has taken so much from us, maybe it will teach us to appreciate the little things people do more.”

-James Trefry

Curbside Worker

In other states where voting took place prior to Wisconsin, many of the poll workers tested positive for coronavirus, and that was a fear that many of the poll workers had in the state of Wisconsin. These workers were exposed to a situation with a high risk, and there were many workers that were against the Supreme Court rule. Samantha Plascencia is a sophomore student in MATC and worked at the Hamilton High School station the day of the election.

When Plascencia found out that the court had ruled to proceed with the in-person voting, she was disappointed about the decision and was afraid of getting the virus. For a moment she did think about not showing up, but at the end of the day it was her duty and she tried to protect herself as much as possible. When asked about what was going through her mind as she was driving to the station, Plascencia said, “I was really worried just because of the whole virus situation you know?” “It is really easy to get the disease, and I’m afraid it gets to me.” Plascencia said that she is feeling well the day after working in the polls and is glad everything went well.

Plascencia considers it would have been more prudent to extend the elections until June, and the health of people were severely risked. According to Plascencia, “despite the precautions that were taken, I think the process was in a way forced.” Samantha was in charge of working in the curbside and guided the voters on where to put the ballots. Once a person passed, someone would sanitize the area and then the next person would pass.

The MATC sophomore believed Bernie Sanders was the ideal candidate to run against President Donald Trump and was sad when she found out he dropped out Wednesday morning. Despite risking her health however, Plascencia stated that she was glad she was able to help out in the community and fulfill with her civil duties.

-Daniel Valadez

Beaver Dam Poll Worker Interview

Andrea Witkowski, social worker for the for the Department of Corrections, wasn’t worried about working the Election Day polls due to the high risk of getting COVID-19 every day at work.

Witkowski worked the Election Day polls from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m Tuesday. She was provided masks, hand sanitizer, and gloves by the city of Beaver Dam. Witkowski talked about her feeling more at risk while working her job rather than help out during Election Day polls.

“I have never worked the Election Day polls before,” said Witkowski. “I did this year to help out the community because of COVID-19. At my job, I get no personal protective equipment to use so I was comfortable I would be safer there then at work actually.”

Gov. Evers plan to postpone Election day was overthrown by the Supreme court and this had Witkowski thinking the situation was unfair.

“I think if the government was going to suspend it, it should have been done earlier than the day before elections were taking place,” said Witkowki.

Beaver Dam is the hot spot for voters in Dodge County and this caused a shortage of poll workers. She said that they were down four poll workers at their location because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fear that came along with it.

Witikowski’s second cousin, Dale Witkowski, was the first death in Wisconsin due to COVID-19. After traveling across the world on an Egyptian trip, he tested positive for COVID-19. This was also one of the reasons she decided to help work on Election Day so others wouldn’t have to feel at risk.

-Taylor Wietzke