Despite efforts from Governor Evers to postpone Wisconsin’s Spring Election and Presidential Preference Primary, the election will occur as scheduled. Evers cited the scope of the outbreak and the challenge in recruiting poll workers as necessary reasons to postpone the election. However, supreme court justices stated his order was unconstitutional. In addition to difficulty recruiting poll workers, many locations typically used as polling places across the state, such as schools and nursing homes, are no longer available. These circumstances have left some communities with very limited options to host their elections and some localities to close their only polling place.

Aside from mitigating the logistics of voting is the added challenge of mitigating health and safety. To address the risk of infection, the Wisconsin Elections Committee provided the following 10 tips to voters:
 

1. Before heading out to vote, double-check your polling location at myvote.wi.gov. Click “Find My Polling Place.”
2. Wash your hands before heading to your polling place on Election Day.  
3. Wash or sanitize your hands again when arriving at your polling place and before voting.
4. Social distancing and public health related changes have been made to each polling place for this election.
5. Please be patient when voting at the polls.  The public health procedures being used will slow down some parts of the process when you have to interact with poll workers.
6. You may be asked to line up outside your polling place or voting area to ensure only a safe number of voters are in the voting area at one time.
7. There will be procedures in place to allow for six feet between voters and poll workers to ensure a safe voting experience for everyone.
8. Please keep your face-to-face interactions brief with both poll workers and other voters.  
9. If you are ill and still need to vote on Election Day, curbside voting options are available.
10. If you received an absentee ballot, you can return it at your polling place on Election Day.

It is important to note that the Absentee ballot deadline extension has also been overturned. Therefore, the deadline to submit absentee ballots is TODAY, April 7^th 2020 at 8:00p. The ballot must be postmarked by April 7 or you can drop it off at your local clerk.  You can find the location of your clerk at: https://myvote.wi.gov/en-US/MyMunicipalClerk. Voters are reminded that absentee ballots DO REQUIRE the signature and address of a witness (a federal appeals court overturned an earlier ruling waiving this requirement).

Many voters whom have requested absentee ballots have not yet received them thus must determine how best to proceed to ensure their vote is cast. If you have requested a ballot but not received it, you can track your request at MyVote.WI.gov to see if your ballot has been mailed (or received if you’ve already returned it).

Stephanie Muñoz