GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) — The City of Green Bay is heading to federal court, asking for a delay and significant changes to the upcoming April 7th election in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
“Everyone non-essential is supposed to be staying home and if you’re out you need to be social distancing,” Mayor Eric Genrich said while appearing on WTAQ’s ‘The Morning News With Matt and Earl’. “But this is a mass gathering of epic proportions that we have scheduled.”
Genrich, earlier this week, joined the mayors of Appleton and Neenah in calling for a temporary delay of the April 7th election so that a mail-in vote could be conducted.
In the days since, Governor Tony Evers has consistently maintained that moving the date of the election isn’t on the table, but says a mail-in only election is possible.
“We understand that the Governor and his staff has been working on a number of solutions,” “But we thought we needed to bring this to the federal courts to give us a workable remedy.” Not all local governments are enthusiastic about moving the election. Washington County has moved to oppose the federal lawsuit.
“We need to protect the sanctity of the election,” said County Board Chairman Don Kriefall. “Elections are the basis of our republic and we need to ensure we have continuity in our government. Should this election be delayed, the statutes provide that our entire board would be vacant. We need to ensure continuity of government and operations.”
Washington County officials say that if the election is held after April 21st, members of their board up for election will be forced to vacate.
Genrich told reporters earlier this week that he wouldn’t recommend a lengthy election delay.
