On March 24, with 457 reported coronavirus cases in his state and strong indications of an upward trend, Governor Tony Evers announced a statewide “Safer at Home” order, with provisions allowing for people to go out for essential needs like going to the doctor or getting food.
But he didn’t address the state’s Spring Election, which was scheduled for April 7. The election was a significant one, as it included the presidential primary, local races, and a handful of judicial positions, including a hotly contested race for a seat on the State Supreme Court. It was expected to draw a large turnout.
Yet about this, Evers – a Democrat – remained circumspect. He previously had locked horns with the Republican-led Legislature over issues such as school funding and gun safety, and he seemed to doubt whether he had the political clout or the authority to delay the election.
As he hedged on this issue, the pandemic continued to assert itself throughout the state and Wisconsinites were beginning to see the handwriting on the wall.
In growing numbers, poll workers – many of them senior citizens – were notifying elections officials that they’d be staying home and sitting this one out. It was becoming apparent that a drastic worker shortage was going to force elections officials to consolidate voting places into central locations that could handle more capacity and social distancing – not only in high school gymnasiums and community rec centers but also in vacated commercial spaces – an old K-Mart store in Oconomowoc, a former Sears store in the Janesville Mall. Milwaukee, meanwhile, was paring back from its typical 180 polling places – to just five.
At the same time, among voters there was an unprecedented surge in requests for absentee ballots. In Milwaukee, one of the voter education groups leading the charge was a civic engagement nonprofit called BLOC - Black Leaders Organizing for Communities. BLOC Executive Director Angela Lang said that her organization had already undertaken a major pivot in their outreach strategies – they hadn’t waited for the Governor’s “Safer at Home” order.
“What did it for us was a week earlier, when the Milwaukee Public School District shut down,” Land said. “MPS rarely closes, even in snow, so we thought OK, this is a big deal.”
Committed to doing year-round engagement within the black neighborhoods of Milwaukee, BLOC quickly switched over from its boots-on-the-ground practice of block-by-block canvassing to phone banking and texting instead.
“It was a bit of an adjustment,” Lang said. “We had 48 hours to uproot our program – we hadn’t had an account with virtual programs and we had to hustle to learn the administrative part.”
She said they got busy training their BLOC ambassadors in how to use Google docs, e-mail, Zoom – and then they were back at it, reaching out to community members by phone to conduct wellness checks as well as to get out the electoral message about applying for absentee ballots.
But in those calls, they were getting feedback that some people were having trouble using the system for requesting an absentee ballot. Other people told them that while they had requested their ballots some time before, they had not yet seen their ballots arrive.
BLOC founder Angela Lang, in white, is surrounded by BLOC staff and ambassadors. – photo courtesy of BLOC – Black Leaders Organizing for Communities