DELOIT, Wis./SOMERSET, Wis. (Reuters) – Wisconsin voters faced long lines at limited polling locations on Tuesday, as the Midwestern state’s presidential primary and local elections moved ahead despite mounting fears about the coronavirus outbreak.
An election volunteer waits as a voter fills out his ballot in his vehicle after the city of Beloit consolidated all their precincts in a single drive-up location outside City Hall to voters cast ballots from their vehicles during the presidential primary election held amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Beloit, Wisconsin, U.S. April 7, 2020. REUTERS/Daniel Acker
Outside Riverside High School in Milwaukee – where officials were forced to close 175 of 180 normal voting sites due to a lack of poll workers – masked voters stood several feet apart in a line that stretched for several blocks early on Tuesday, according to videos and photos posted on Twitter.
More than half of Wisconsin’s municipalities reported shortages of poll workers, prompting the state to call up 2,400 National Guard troops to assist.
The election took place even though Wisconsin, like most U.S. states, has imposed a stay-at-home order on its residents. More than a dozen other states have postponed their elections in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has transformed Americans’ daily lives and plunged the economy into an apparent recession.
Some Wisconsin cities resorted to “drive-through” voting. In Beloit, a city of about 37,000 people al