Wisconsin Election: If Someone Shares Vote Totals, It's Illegal

OAK CREEK, WI — "If anyone gives you something, they're probably going to jail."

That was what Oak Creek City Clerk Catherine Roeske told Patch on the morning of April 7 when we asked if there would be any vote totals Tuesday night.

Voters took to the polls on April 7 in Wisconsin for the presidential primary and statewide general election amid the coronavirus public health emergency, yet nobody is going to know who won or who lost for about a week. A court order prevented results from being tabulated before 4 p.m. on April 13 as a legal battle ensued over absentee ballot deadlines and the date of the election itself.

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For municipal clerks across Wisconsin, election day is both an exercise in compassion, efficiency and compliance. As people file into the few voting centers that are open, volunteers and voters alike risk exposing themselves to the new coronavirus. National Guard members are deployed in plain clothes across the state, directing people into the right lines and helping them navigate an unfamiliar voting center during an unfamiliar time in U.S. history.

But by the time election day is done, none of the votes will be counted. It's against the law.

"Nobody is allowed to tabulate any kind of results tonight," Roeske said. "All of the machines get suspended. Nobody will have state totals."

Roeske said all of Oak Creek's voting machines will be turned off, unplugged and wheeled back to the clerk's vault once the night is over. The machines have battery backups. Each machine has a tamper-proof memory component that stores voter data. The machines are held under lock-and-key when they're not being used to record the votes of the roughly 8,700-plus absentee paper ballots that will continue to come in.

Roeske said she anticipates no issues processing all of the absentee ballots that come in, saying the city has about 1,500 ballots still out there as of 11 a.m. on election day.

According to state rules, absentee ballots that are hand-delivered after 8 p.m. or that are postmarked after April 7 are not counted. Ballots with a postmark on or before April 7 and received by 4 p.m. on April 13 are counted. If voters miss the Tuesday deadline one way or another - including not having requested ballots reach them by Tuesday - they cannot be recorded.

Roeske said staff will tabulate all the votes stored in the city's voting machines on April 13 at 4 p.m. "All of my reporting will be out by 5 p.m.," she said, adding that she feels Oak Creek's situation is one of the more manageable ones in the state.

Polling Going Smoothly In Oak Creek

A critical shortage of poll workers hit Oak Creek hard on April 7. Of the roughly 125 poll workers Roeske has on a typical election day, they were down to about 26 on April 7; four of which were National Guard members in plain clothing. Polling places were consolidated across the city to Oak Creek High School - a modern facility with bright lighting, open corridors and a spacious gymnasium that ordinarily hosts basketball and volleyball contests this time of year.

"We are fortunate to be able to use the Oak Creek High School, located in the heart of the City, as our temporary polling location," she said.

When asked how things were operating at the new polling place Tuesday morning, Roeske said she was relieved with initial reports.

"It is much better than I ever expected," she said. "There were quite a few people waiting to vote at 7 a.m. We got through the initial burst very quickly and it was running smoothly."

Yet as voters filed into the polls - roughly 20 percent of the city's registered voting population by estimate, Roeske said she's concerned about the demographic of people who didn't cast their ballot for this election.

"There is an entire group of people who don't know how to absentee vote, and who don't want to go to the polls. That's the group of people we should be concerned about," she told Patch. "That's the sector of people the government needs to be aware of. You've taken this group of people and forced them to make a choice between their health and their vote."