With Voter ID Blocked, Election Officials Shift Focus To Boosting Turnout

Now that voter ID requirements have been put on hold, election officials in some Wisconsin cities are back to focusing on other steps to boost voter turnout.

Milwaukee Election Commissioner Neil Albrecht said voter registration in the city is only about 70 percent of what it was at this time in 2010. That could be significant for Democrats, given that the party is hoping for a large turnout in Milwaukee to offset Republicans’ self-described efforts to “run up the score,” or their vote margins, in the conservative suburbs.

Albrecht said the few weeks spent trying to tell people about the now-halted photo ID requirements was a distraction.

“That includes all of the different groups who were normally be engaged in voter registration activities. They were sort of sidetracked with the need to get the messaging out around voter ID,” said Albrecht.

Albrecht and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett are now promoting efforts to register voters at city libraries over the next few days before an early-registration period expires. They’re also reminding people they can register on Election Day and take part in early voting — though Barrett said Republicans have limited that, too, and eliminated it on weekends.

“So the practice that we saw here for many, many years of people going from churches to the polls on Sunday, for example, has ended,” said Barrett.

Republicans have said they wanted voting hours to be the same around the state, and that many rural counties don’t have the money for weekend hours. Early voting, also known as in-person absentee voting, starts in Wisconsin on Oct. 20.