Early voting began Tuesday and will continue through October on the UW-Madison campus. Thirteen designated in-person absentee ballot locations opened and subsequently caused some long lines and waits for students.
At a voting tent in front of Memorial Union, some students waited in line outside in the cold for over 45 minutes to exercise their right to vote, some for the first time. Many didn’t mind the wait, and offered various reasons for why they chose to participate in the election.
Samantha Golin, a sophomore at UW-Madison, decided to wait in line and vote early because she feared riots and other forms of violence would occur around voting areas on Election Day. Nonetheless, Golin found the early voting process to be easy and appreciated her role in fulfilling her civic duty.
“It was cold, but I wanted to go and do it in person because it was my first time to be able to vote,” Golin said.
Inclement weather forced Memorial Union to move its voting booths indoors Thursday. While the lines and waiting periods decreased because of the weather conditions, UW sophomore and first time voter Allie Arentz described her experience as fun and rewarding.
“Everyone deserves to have a voice. We all have the option to vote,” Arentz said. “I think we should [vote] because even though it seems like one singular voice might not matter, all together, they definitely do. Everyone needs to vote.”
Students also chose to vote early because of their extra free time and their daily routines being upended by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We don’t have anything else to do. What else are we going to do? Classes are all online so might as well just take a break and be able to go outside and do something that actually matters,” said UW sophomores Ella Shapiro and Erin Rudnick in an interview with Channel3000.
Poll workers were surprised by the number of students who came out to vote early. Lizzie Johnson, an 18-year-old election volunteer, reflected on her experience which included making sure students adhered to social distancing protocols and presenting the proper documentation to cast their ballot.
“This line is long and especially in the beginning of the process, we were trying to get the hang of it, so it was going slowly and they waited in this line,” Johnson told Channel3000. “We’ve seen students who are on their zoom classes on their phone. It’s good to see that people are getting out here to vote and waiting in this cold, long line to do that.”
Johnson’s response comes after the city of Madison hired an unprecedented 6,000 poll workers for the election, dwarfing previous election cycles.
Most speculate Wisconsin will be a battleground state in the upcoming Nov. 3 election. In 2016, then Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump won the state over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by less than 23,000 votes.
Early in-person voting will expire on Nov. 1. The early-casted ballots are scheduled to be tallied on Election Day after 7:00 a.m.
