MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Despite a last-minute court battle and a stay-at-home order, thousands of Wisconsin voters on Tuesday braved the coronavirus outbreak to wait six feet apart in lines for hours and cast ballots in the state’s presidential primary and local elections.
Some Wisconsinites who had requested absentee ballots said they never received them, forcing them to choose between risking their health to cast a ballot in person or forgoing their right to vote.
The confusion and frustration among the Midwestern state’s citizens – as well as the 11th-hour legal wrangling over whether to hold the election during a public health emergency – served as a sobering preview of what may await other states, or the country as a whole, if the pandemic persists.
The general election that will determine the next president – Republican President Donald Trump or a Democratic challenger is scheduled for Nov. 3.
In Wisconsin, more than half of municipalities reported shortages of poll workers, prompting the state to call up 2,400 National Guard troops to assist.
Outside Riverside High School in Milwaukee – where officials closed all but five of the city’s 180 voting sites for a lack of poll workers – masked voters stood in a line that stretched for several blocks.
In Green Bay, poll workers sat behind Plexiglas barriers. In Madison, election officials urged voters to bring their own pens – black or blue ballpoint, if possible, because other colors or types of ink could flummox