GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Green Bay voters seemed to have a much different experience at the polls Tuesday compared to what in-person voters experienced for the spring election.
People were able to vote in a matter of minutes at the former Sears building on the city’s west side, which hosted 11 of the city’s 47 voting wards.
In the late afternoon at UW-Green Bay, there were times where there were no voters in the room.
“I think people got the message to vote absentee,” said Celestine Jeffreys, Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich’s Chief of Staff.
Based off what FOX 11 could find, the most action was at city hall with people dropping off absentee ballots outside, and poll workers processing them inside.
Green Bay residents requested more than 15,000 absentee ballots, a city record.
“I think voters were concerned about waiting in line again even though it is a beautiful day, but certainly no one wants to wait in line to vote,” said Jeffreys. “That’s terrible.”
For the spring election, some voters waited in line more than four hours.
“It took me 3 1/2 hours,” said Robin Kocha, a Green Bay voter. “It was still worth it to vote though.”
“We didn’t even bother,” said Mark Todt, a Green Bay voter.
In April, the city consolidated its 31 polling locations to two after all but 19 poll workers backed out due to coronavirus concerns. For this election, the city had 17 poll locations and 250 poll workers, including 50 National Guard members, extra help the city declined in spring due to training concerns.
“The way that lines form is because there aren’t enough poll workers,” said Jeffreys. “Like I said, we have a really good compliment of poll workers for this August election.”
“It was really organized, went real quick,” said Kocha.
The smoothness has elections organizers and voters hopeful for November.
“I think if it’s like this, it shouldn’t be a problem,” said Todt.
But, November will be a whole different ballgame compared to Tuesday.
The city hopes to have about the same number of polling locations then. However, it would like to have about 100 more poll workers than it did Tuesday.
