by Reuters
BELOIT, Wis./SOMERSET, Wis. — 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.
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 as polls opened on Tuesday morning, 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.
A flurry of 11th-hour legal wrangling on Monday failed to stop the balloting, despite warnings from Democratic officials that thousands of voters would be forced to choose between their safety and their rights.
In deciding separate lawsuits brought by Republicans, the state Supreme Court blocked Democratic Governor Tony Evers' order to delay the election until June and the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal judge's decision extending absentee voting, instead ruling ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday to be counted.
The latter ruling left voters like Hannah Gleeson, a 34-year-old healthcare worker in a long-term care facility, out of luck on Tuesday.
Gleeson, pregnant with her first child, tested positive for the coronavirus and is self-quarantining at home with her husband. She requested an absentee ballot last week but has yet to receive it, as officials struggle to respond to a deluge of applications.
She called the state's Elections Commission on Monday to ask for advice.
"They said my ballot could still come today and my best bet was getting that in the mail, or, better luck at the next election," Gleeson said. "I don't, at this point, have a way to vote. It's really despicable and voter suppression at its finest."
'DRIVE-THROUGH' VOTING
Some Wisconsin cities resorted to "drive-through" voting. In Beloit, a city of about 37,000 people along the Illinois border, poll workers brought ballots to drivers' windows after verifying photo identification and residency, then returned the filled-out paperwork to a counting machine.
Phillip Thomas, 70, and his wife Kathy Thomas, 65, had filled out absentee ballots - but as new Wisconsin residents, they were unclear on how to handle the witness requirement. They were relieved to learn that Beloit was doing a drive-through system and brought their ballots to the polling site to make sure they were counted.
"We were afraid we were going to have to vote in person," said Thomas, who blamed state Republicans for quashing a bid to postpone the election. "We felt it was important."
The last-minute legal maneuvering over the election overshadowed the Democratic presidential primary in Wisconsin, the first nominating contest held since March 17 in the race to pick a challenger to Republican President Donald Trump for the Nov. 3 election. The outbreak has pushed front-runner Joe Biden and rival Bernie Sanders off the campaign trail.
Former Vice President Biden has built a nearly insurmountable lead over Senator Sanders in the delegates who will pick the nominee at the national convention this summer. The convention, scheduled to be held in Milwaukee, has been postponed to August from July by the pandemic.
After a late-night meeting on Monday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said no results from Tuesday's voting would be released until April 13, the deadline for absentee ballots postmarked by Tuesday to be received.
The commission said in a blog post on Tuesday morning that no county had reported any problems, including any polling places that were unable to open.
In the village of Somerset, where two National Guard members were stationed, clerk Felicia Germaine said turnout appeared to be significantly lower than usual. Voters gave one another space while waiting, thanks to strips of tape on the ground to encourage social distancing.
"It's almost like a big game of adult hopscotch," said Cherie Link, a state Senate candidate who was volunteering as a poll worker.
(This story was refiled to fix typographical error in paragraphs 7, 8 and 10 to correct name from "Glesson" to "Gleeson")
(Reporting by Daniel Acker in Beloit, Wisconsin; Nicholas Pfosi in Somerset, Wisconsin; Amanda Becker in Washington; and Joseph Ax in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts; Additional reporting by John Whitesides in Washington; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Jonathan Oatis)
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