Addressing Disparities in Early Voting

In 2014, Governor Walker signed into law a bill to make early voting more universal across Wisconsin. One provision was to limit all municipalities to similar hours on weekdays. Another provision limited weekend voting. Ultimately these changes were overturned in court but disparities still exist.

This spring, in Madison, there are 42 sites for in-person absentee voting. From March 18th through March 30th, if you live in Madison, there is a place to early vote from 10am through 7pm weekdays and at least 10am to 4pm on Saturdays and hours even at select churches on Sundays – how convenient if it’s your church!

These disparities are played out in cities, villages, and townships across the state. This is not a criticism of any municipality. Overall, the vast majority of municipal clerks do a great job administrating elections. They make early, in-person absentee voting possible within the constraints they have. Regardless, the result is a vast difference in the opportunity to vote early simply depending on where one lives.

One criticism to making any limits on in-person early voting is that it is intended to ‘suppress voters’ or simply ‘make it harder to vote’. On the contrary, the goal is to ensure every voter is given more equal access to early voting. It helps ensure that larger municipalities cannot run ‘round the clock’ operations that give one group of voters more opportunity than a more rural area with only one afternoon on a weekday to vote early. Even limiting the hours in a large city slightly would still mean those voters have ample early voting opportunities – just not quite as lop-sided.

We can do better. Consider just two simple changes:

• Set a maximum number of total hours for early voting, with each municipality choosing how to allocate them up to that maximum. These could be hours during weekdays or over the weekends. Local control on how these hours are set - up to that maximum.

• Limit in-person early voting locations to a reasonable number – more than one and less than forty-two. Smaller municipalities still won’t need more than one but larger cities can’t overdue it either.

Ultimately, even if in-person absentee voting was limited, mail-in and drop boxes are still available and viable alternatives. No voter would be disenfranchised. While no solution is perfect, and some differences will still exist across municipalities, but we absolutely can do better.

Scott Grabins is the Editor of Four Lakes Voices. A long time volunteer in Dane County politics, he is the former Chair of the Republican Party of Dane County and has worked with both partisan and non-partisan campaigns over the past 20 years.