Lack of poll workers across Wisconsin, flood of absentee ballots spark fears votes will go uncounted

Patrick Marley , Molly Beck | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - More than 100 communities in Wisconsin don't have any poll workers for the April 7 election and a record number of voters are overwhelming clerks with absentee ballots — leading to warnings that thousands of votes may not be counted.

Nearly 60% of Wisconsin municipalities are short on poll workers, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

They are short almost 7,000 poll workers, and election officials are worried even more won't show up on April 7 because of the coronavirus pandemic that is keeping people in their homes.

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“To create an illusion for the public that somehow everything is working fine I think is just not appropriate,” Commissioner Mark Thomsen said during an emergency meeting of the commission Tuesday.

In Milwaukee, the shortage is pushing election officials to reduce the number of polling places from 180 to 10 or 12 — a scenario Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett characterized as "irresponsible."

In addition to their concerns about how the election will run, state election officials are worried about the ability of clerks to process the flood of absentee ballots that are hitting them.

Nearly 1 million voters have asked for absentee ballots for the April 7 presidential primary and election for state Supreme Court and local offices. That surpasses the total number of early ballots cast — both by mail and in-person — in the 2016 presidential election.

Thomsen argued large numbers of absentee ballots may never be counted because of slow mail service and confusion amid the pandemic. People who get absentee ballots in the next few days in many cases won’t have time to get them back to clerks by election day, the latest they can return them, he said.

As of Tuesday, Wisconsin voters have requested more than 972,000 absentee ballots. So far just over a third of them — about 338,000 — have been returned to clerks, according to logs kept by clerks. The actual number of returned ballots may be higher because clerks are behind on their paperwork, said Meagan Wolfe, director of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

“I realize the staff is in an impossible position,” Thomsen said. “But I’m trying to find out how many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of ballots we’re not going to get back.”

Wolfe said the post office typically delivers absentee ballots to voters in two days, but it can take up to a week. Returning absentee ballots to the clerks takes the same amount of time.

In March, the commission provided clerks with 1.2 million absentee ballot envelopes after they faced severe shortages of them.

It has since ordered more than 1 million more to address a new shortage, and those will get to the places most in need Wednesday. But the rest “are unlikely to arrive before the April 7th election,” according to a memo from Wolfe.

“I remain extremely concerned about our ability to run this election,” Commissioner Ann Jacobs said. "We’re going to have absentee ballots that are arriving late. We have absentee ballots that are not going to arrive to voters (in time for them to return them) through no fault of their own.”

Evers asks state workers to help

With one week before the election, Gov. Tony Evers is encouraging state employees to fill the gap among other efforts to replace older poll workers who are at a higher risk of serious health complications and death if they contract the virus.

"State employees who are able and who are not at high risk themselves are encouraged to work as a local poll worker on April 7," Administration Secretary Joel Brennan said in a Monday email to state employees, asking them to sign up by the end of Tuesday.

As of Tuesday morning, 447 people told DOA they would consider the idea, according to DOA spokeswoman Molly Vidal.

On March 20, Evers’ chief counsel, Ryan Nilsestuen, told election officials the governor would call up the Wisconsin National Guard to help at the polls if enough poll workers could not be found. But as of Monday, a spokesman said there were no plans to deploy the Guard despite the worker shortage.

“Using National Guard members to serve as poll workers for the April 7 election is not currently an option under consideration,” Wisconsin National Guard spokesman Joe Trovato said by email.

The Guard has helped secure cleaning supplies for polling locations and is providing the Wisconsin Elections Commission with project management, he said.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester has volunteered to work the polls, his spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Vos said again Tuesday he and other Republican leaders of the Legislature do not have plans to move the election and praised the high participation by absentee ballot.

"I have been in contact with my local clerks; they’re proceeding as directed by the Elections Commission and are working hard to address the needs at the local level," he said in a statement. "My legislative colleagues and I continue to promote voting by absentee. I’m confident that voters and election officials will rise to the challenges that this election may bring. During this pandemic, we need more democracy, not less."

Some election clerks are so short of workers that they are planning to shutter polling places around the state.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is allowing municipalities to consolidate polling places to reduce the number of locations they will need to sanitize. That practice will result in more people flocking to each location as health officials are telling people to stay away from one another.

According to the commission, clerks are worried people who pledge to work on April 7 will ultimately end up sick themselves or scared of getting the virus.

"While an unexpected absence is always possible, many clerks worry they do not have adequate depth to accommodate missing staff," Wolfe wrote in a Monday memo to county clerks.

The City of Milwaukee expects to have only 10 to 12 voting sites — or possibly fewer — open for in-person voting citywide for next Tuesday's election day, Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Neil Albrecht said Tuesday.

That's a dramatic reduction from the 180 voting sites that are typically open throughout the state's largest city on an election day.

Evers told reporters Monday he is standing by his decision to not delay the election, citing the need to make sure county boards, school boards and other elected bodies don't face vacancies. He has said he does not believe he has the power to postpone the election.

"Nothing has changed from my vantage point," he said Monday.

Evers has called for all voters to request absentee ballots to avoid people interacting at the polls, but the commission has said providing that many ballots in time could be impossible.

A federal judge is considering a request by voter mobilization groups to postpone the election. He is expected to rule in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the state commission is trying to find ways to keep polling places clean.

The state is providing clerks with at least two liters of sanitizer for each polling place. In addition, the state is attempting to acquire 1.5 million disinfectant wipes but so far has only been able to get half that amount.

The state has ordered 1.5 million pens that voters can keep so they don’t have to touch pens that have been used by others.

Mary Spicuzza of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.

Contact Patrick Marley and Molly Beck at patrick.marley@jrn.com and at molly.beck@jrn.com. Follow on Twitter at @patrickdmarley and at @mollybeck.