We’ll be holding elections next Tuesday in Wisconsin. That date won’t be postponed mostly because Republicans who control both houses of the Legislature are assholes.
That said, included with our Presidential Primary is a State Supreme Court election along with statewide municipal elections. Winners of those municipal elections take office shortly next month and we don’t have laws allowing incumbents to remain in office at the expiration of their terms so the election really can’t be postponed long enough to be valuable during a pandemic.
Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, has tried to convince Republican leaders to enable ballots to be mailed to every registered voter, but they won’t agree. We DO have no-excuse absentee voting in Wisconsin, but that won’t save us in times like these. You can’t thank Republicans for that. It isn’t as easy as it sounds because they like it that way.
The GOP, once they controlled all the levers of power in Wisconsin following the Red Tide of 2010, wasted little time sticking it to the people when it came to voting. Not only making it harder to vote by requiring not just very specific types of ID being presented during voting, but also requiring voters and poll workers to waste just a little more unnecessary time in requiring voters to sign the poll book. Make those in line wait just a bit longer with each and every voter because each one has to stop, present the ID and sign the poll book before the line can inch along.
So, why not just vote absentee? Well, it’s tough getting that ballot. Yes, you can do it online, but that means uploading one of those very special IDs along with your online request. Poor people tend not to have internet access or a scanning computer and laptop handy to accomplish that. And if a friend has, they’ll have to break self-isolation in these times to get that done. I had the equipment and the time (even with a black thumb for technology) to get it done in 4 tries over 3 hours.
OK, let’s say that somehow you’ve magically obtained one of those absentee ballots. Easy peasy, right? Nope. Because you must vote in the presence of a witness, have them sign your ballot envelope and include their address. That’s right, you have to break self-isolation to get that witness signature. No signature and the ballot goes, unopened, into the garbage can. And you, too, must remember to sign your ballot envelope or it won’t be counted either.
Election clerks in Green Bay have been warriors trying to get a judge or anyone with power to enable people to get the ballots (which are, by the way, sent to your voting address) without uploading the ID and to submit them without the required witness. Shot down each time.
And this is where it gets ridiculous. Since the ballot is sent addressed to the voter at their voting address, why is an uploaded ID needed? Why is a witness, their signature and address required? The signature of the voter should be all that’s required.
The city of Milwaukee has established drop off sites for absentee ballots where the person collecting the ballot acts as the witness, but it’s only for city of Milwaukee residents. Which leaves the rest of us in need to break quarantine in order to cast a ballot, even absentee.
I write this in the hopes that if I get Covid-19 in April that some one or some group will sue the hell out of Scott Fitzgerald (R — State Senate Majority Leader), Robin Vos (R — State Assembly Speaker), and the Republican Party of Wisconsin for forcing me out of self-isolation with my 4 out of 5 risk factors in order to cast a ballot.
I’ve been voting for 50 years and nothing is going to stop me now. It shouldn’t be this hard or life-threatening to vote. Ever.
Addendum: Reminder to Wisconsinites to vote no on Marsy’s Law. It’s heavily advertised by special interest groups with an appealing message, but it will severely restrict the rights of those accused of crimes by allowing evidence to be withheld. State Senator Fred Ritter has been sounding the alarm on this state referendum.
Update: I found this from the Wisconsin Conservation Voters that’s helpful if you have a smart phone with a data plan (most of us old folks have talk/text flip phones). It’s not correct about the part where he says if you’re on a PC and select “add files” that your laptop camera comes up. Mine sure didn’t and I have a brand new shiny laptop.