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On the first day of early in-person voting in Wisconsin on Tuesday, a long line of 100 people stretched outside the old Milwaukee Western Bank and Capitol on 60th Street.

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Throughout the hot afternoon the line was growing larger and larger, inspiring a local barber to hand out his business cards.

Some people showed up at the North Side early voting site and quickly decided to return another day. But others dutifully took their places in the queue, including a couple who brought lawn chairs.

The departure of voters who said they waited in line for an hour and a half or more due in part to computer problems did not discourage 56-year-old Renee Green.

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“I need to go out and make sure my vote counts,” said Green, who arrived with a woman walking with a cane. “We said, ‘We’ll get this done.’”

Linea Sundstrom, a semi-retired archaeologist, also came to the site, advertised on temporary street signs more than a mile away.

But its so-called “voter recovery” effort won’t begin until the voting machines are finished.

Sundstrom has co-chaired Supermarket Legends, a nonpartisan, left-leaning Milwaukee voter advocacy group that has registered voters outside grocery stores and other venues since 2011.

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Volunteers for the “voter rescue” initiative spend each Election Day at some of the city’s 10 early voting sites, greeting hundreds of confused residents who mistakenly thought they could cast their Election Day votes at early voting sites like the old bank.

Volunteers explain that the early voting period, which lasts about two weeks, ends the weekend before Election Day. They’re trying to make sure voters know how to find their local polling place, which is the only place where in-person voting is allowed on Election Day.

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“We do a lot of different things in Milwaukee to promote voting. It’s something everyone likes to do,” Sundstrom said. “Because you get immediate feedback; This person was upset and discouraged, but now they have a plan. Maybe they will vote, maybe they won’t; We cannot control this. But at least they gave themselves the power to vote if they wanted and didn’t slam the door in their faces.”

Hundreds of voters were ‘saved’

So far, battlefield situation almost synonymous with Wisconsin Badger Status As for the presidential election. The candidate who carried Wisconsin in four of the last six contests, including Republican Donald Trump in 2016 and Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, won the state by less than 1 percentage point.

So the adage that every vote counts gains more strength here, and in-person early voting has become more important.

In the 2020 presidential election, 20% of Wisconsin votes were cast in early voting areas. That rate was 12% in the November 2022 elections, which include races for governor and U.S. Senate.

Based on simple calculations kept on paper, Sundstrom said Supermarket Legends “saved” 800 Election Day voters in 2020 and nearly 900 in 2022.

Leaders of the National Association of State Election Directors, the national Electionline news service and the Wisconsin League of Women Voters said they were not aware of voter rescue efforts anywhere else in the United States.

“This is a really interesting case,” said Barry Burden, director of the Center for Election Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, adding that he had not heard of such initiatives elsewhere. He noted similar confusion among students at UW-Madison, where the early voting location is not always the same as the Election Day polling location.

Orlando Owens, Milwaukee County Republican Party branch chairman who is working to increase GOP voter turnout in Milwaukee, called voter bailout “just another tool in the toolbox” to increase voter turnout in heavily Democratic Milwaukee. “We have to find a way to adapt to this,” he said.

‘They had plans, but the plan was disrupted’

During early voting, Milwaukee voters can cast ballots at any early voting location in the city, which is one of the things that’s causing the confusion.

On Election Day, a voter can vote at an early voting location; However, this place must also be a polling place that also serves the voter’s address.

Early voting sites, such as a former polling place bank, are not open for Election Day voting.

“Sometimes people get a little shaken or nervous because they have a plan, and then it falls apart,” Sundstrom said. “So the first thing is to get the person to take a breath and understand what the problem is.”

Most voters know where to go if they are told they must vote at their polling place, but if they don’t, volunteers research their polling place.

There’s no way to know if people went to the polls and voted.

“Most people say, ‘Oh, well, I can do that.’ But there are people across the city who work two or three jobs, and there’s no way they can get there,” Sundstrom said. “If they say they can’t, we’ll try and strategize… but we don’t have any superpowers. We just try to give them information and a friendly face.

avoiding anxiety

More than 97,000 people voted on the first day of in-person early voting in Wisconsin; this is 22% more than in the November 2020 election.

That doesn’t rule out the possibility of confusion in early voting areas on Election Day for a presidential race that’s effectively tied in Wisconsin, according to recent polls, and voter turnout is expected to be high.

Kisha Fields, 47, came to 60th and Capitol on Tuesday to vote early for the first time, saying she wanted to avoid Election Day anxiety.

Fields was undaunted by the wait and remained hopeful that all votes would be counted accurately, no matter how they were cast.

“Prayer is the key,” he said. “I have no control over this matter; None of us are doing that… I just have to do my part.”

Find out where to vote, what’s on your ballot and more on TMJ4’s elections page here.

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