Here & Now

Wisconsin Voters Removed From Voter Rolls

Frederica Freyberg:

State voters in Tuesday's spring primary election narrowed the state Supreme Court field down to two. Sauk County Judge Michael Screnock tallied 46% of the vote, followed by Milwaukee County Judge Rebecca Dallet, who garnered 36%. Madison attorney Tim Burns was eliminated from the race with 18%. Candidates Screnock and Dallet have committed to a debate on Friday night, March 30 in a live broadcast cosponsored by Wisconsin Public Television and Wisconsin Public Radio. Tuesday’s spring election turnout was above average. Nearly 12% of voting aged residents pushed through bad weather to cast their ballots. There were a few snags however, including reports of voters whose names were erroneously purged from the registration rolls. That after state elections officials sent 343,000 postcards to voters in November because they were thought to have moved. If recipients of the cards did not respond, they were deactivated from the voting rolls. Now to get to the bottom of this, we are joined by Wisconsin Elections Commission Public Information Officer Reid Magney. Thanks for being here.

Reid Magney:

You're welcome.

Frederica Freyberg:

How many voters have you determined were inaccurately removed from the voting rolls?

Reid Magney:

At this point we’ve only heard from less than 20 people. We’re asking people if this happened to you, please contact us. We’ve found that there were some people who actually did move and they should have had to re-register and they ignored the postcard. Or we’ve actually found a couple of people who were erroneously marked dead, in a different sort of thing, different issue. So we really want to hear from people. We really want to get to the bottom of it.

Frederica Freyberg:

And did it really mostly have to do with people just not responding to those postcards?

Reid Magney:

Well, it could have been that. It could have also had to do with the way we match data. Sometimes the DMV has information based on their address one way and we might have it in the voter records another way. And we’re — this is the first time we’ve done this kind of a match. And so I think we’re learning from it. We really want to take steps to make sure that nothing like this happens in April or August or November.

Frederica Freyberg:

And how do you intend to do that? What kind of changes are you anticipating?

Reid Magney:

Well, again, we want to learn from what happened. We are looking at a number of different options. We’re planning to present a plan to the commission on March 13.

Frederica Freyberg:

You said that it was a small number that you know of right now.

Reid Magney:

Right.

Frederica Freyberg:

Your expectation is that perhaps there were other people out there that had happened to.

Reid Magney:

Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:

But it was statewide, right?

Reid Magney:

Yes. This was not targeted to any one particular area. Not targeted at who people support. We’ve heard some people wondering are they trying to get rid of certain types of voters. That’s not how the Wisconsin Elections Commission business. The commission is bipartisan. The staff is nonpartisan. We really want to make sure that people are registered and are voting.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what happened to voters who went to the polls and their names weren’t on there?

Reid Magney:

So basically they had to re-register. So far we’re not unaware of anyone who was unable to re-register. You have to provide proof of residence. I think I’ve heard of a couple people who maybe had to go back home and get that–whether it’s a utility bill or something like that. We apologize for those kind of problems if that happened. But we’re not aware of anyone who was unable to vote.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why did the state undertake this endeavor of cleaning up these voter rolls?

Reid Magney:

So in 2016 we joined something called ERIC, the Electronic Registration Information Center. It’s a consortium of more than 20 states that share data and work with them to really help first to make sure that people who aren’t registered get registered and then to make sure that our voter rolls are accurate. In 2016 we sent out more than a million postcards to people who we thought were eligible to vote but not registered. We really want to get people registered. The second part of that is looking at okay, who’s maybe moved and needs to r-register because if you move even if you live in an apartment building and you move from apartment A to apartment B, you need to re-register. And some people don’t realize that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Yet, again, in Wisconsin you can register same day as you vote.

Reid Magney:

Yes. That’s the fail-safe in Wisconsin. That’s why we felt comfortable doing it. Now, we’re going to make sure that nobody runs into this problem going forward.

Frederica Freyberg:

Especially because we’re coming into a general election where turnout could be much, much higher.

Reid Magney:

Right. Instead of 12%, we’re looking in November 50% to 55%.

Frederica Freyberg:

While we have you here, we just wanted to ask you the status of the Elections Commissioner Michael Haas.

Reid Magney:

We’re having a special meeting next Friday, March 2, at which the commission is going to address that. There’s not a lot I can say right now. But stay tuned for that.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Reid Magney, thanks very much.

Reid Magney:

You're welcome.