A roll of "I voted" stickers is ready for voters at Union Congregational Church in Green Bay during the spring primary election Feb. 15, 2022. PC: Fox 11 Online
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Voters continue to see delays in some Wisconsin communities, including in the Fox Valley, on the second day of early in-person voting.
The city of Appleton says it is still experiencing delays with a statewide computer system, causing longer lines and wait times. The issue has been with the state’s WisVote label printing, which provides for more efficiency for election officials.
These labels are placed on the outside of in-person absentee certificate envelopes. Now, clerks have been manually writing in-person absentee information on the outside of the envelopes.
Appleton City Clerk Kami Lynch said on Wednesday morning that they were behind on logging voters from when the issue was first experienced on the first day of early in-person voting Tuesday.
“The voters from late yesterday afternoon when we made the switch, those are all being manually entered today. So we’re still behind,” said Lynch.
Some voters still waited in long lines to cast their ballot early Wednesday.
“We came yesterday (Tuesday), they said the line was about an hour. We decided to stick it out today. It’s an hour again and we’ll get the vote in and that way it’s done,” said Kevin McCarl.
Those in Little Chute also experienced longer wait times. Some voters decided they’d rather stop by another day.
“We had a wait. We would’ve had to wait for an hour, so we’re coming back tomorrow morning at 8:00,” said Ken Lisowe.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission said Tuesday that staff members increased the capacity of the WisVote system in response to the delays.
On Wednesday, the agency provided this update:
WEC staff learned Wednesday that the system delay is not just affecting WisVote label printing – it appears to also be affecting some non-election related state systems as well. High levels of in-person absentee voting do still appear to be compounding the issue.
WEC and state IT personnel are currently analyzing the data we receive and we will provide further information when we learn more.
Printing a label is not required for in-person absentee voting, though it is certainly an added efficiency for our hard-working local election officials. Municipal clerks may choose to hand write in-person absentee information on the outside of the absentee certificate envelope if they wish to not print a label. In some cases this may alleviate the time it takes for absentee voting. No voters should be turned away due to label printing.
Voters in line in Appleton say just before noon that they waited about 45-50 minutes to vote.
Comments