GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) — On a typical election day in Green Bay, there are over 30 open polling locations, 270 poll workers, and short wait times. Yesterday’s election looked nothing like that.
Amidst the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic, polling locations were consolidated to just two: East and West High Schools. The typical 270 poll workers were cut to around 17. Wait times stretched into the four-hour range during peak hours.
Now, Mayor Eric Genrich is responding to criticism after reports that he denied assistance from the Wisconsin National Guard to shore up polling staff.
In a Facebook post, Genrich Wednesday said that consolidating polling places was “a last resort” taken in response to fewer trained poll workers.
“We had the option of bringing inexperienced individuals into the process, but our city clerk and I did not feel comfortable implicating untrained city employees, members of the public, or members of the National Guard in a dangerous and stressful environment,” Genrich wrote.
Other cities in Wisconsin, such as nearby Appleton, did not experience the long wait times and fewer polling locations seen in places like Green Bay and Milwaukee–that didn’t sit well with Green Bay Common Councilman Chris Wrey.
“I don’t know how they can have 15 polling places and a relatively normal election and we can only have two,” Wrey told WTAQ’s ‘The John Muir Show” on Wednesday. “Are they smarter than us?”
Wrey suggested he will press the council to launch an investigation into the handling of the election.
The results of the election won’t be reported until April 13th, that’s on order from a Federal judge to give them time to count absentee ballots.
