Contrasting a record-breaking voter turnout on campus for February’s presidential primary, city and state officials expect a low turnout in today’s election.
The Government Accountability Board predicted a 20 percent turnout, and the Dane County Clerk’s Office has predicted Madison numbers closer to 15 percent.
The 20 percent figure matches closely Wisconsin’s last Supreme Court election, though some estimated campus turnout in the primary topping 60 percent.
Campus groups like the College Republicans and College Democrats tend to push voter turnout before elections, but neither group has extensive turnout activities planned for today.
Instead, the Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group has taken the lead in the push for voters.
“Unfortunately, local elections often bring a lot of apathy especially when students go to school here but they aren’t from here; they don’t feel like it matters at all,” said Alison Kane, a WISPIRG intern. “So part of our campaign is really to let students know that things like local elections, especially the County Board, affect things in the university directly and [students’] lives.”
In this election cycle, WISPIRG has hosted the debate for District 5 Dane County supervisor candidates, held various tabling events to remind students of the upcoming elections and handed out about 400 fliers, according to Kane.
College Democrats will not have specific voter turnout events because so many students registered in the primary and also because the major ballot item, the Supreme Court race, is a nonpartisan election, according to College Democrats Chair Oliver Kiefer.
College Republicans Chair Sara Mikolajczak said her group does not have events planned specifically for the election for the same reason, though they have used word of mouth widely to get out the vote.
Both campus groups have weighed in on the elections with their endorsements: The College Republicans have endorsed Judge Michael Gableman for Supreme Court, and the College Democrats have endorsed Justice Louis Butler for Supreme Court and Conor O’Hagan for Dane County Board.
Mikolajczak said Gableman has the “conservative values” the College Republicans support.
Kiefer said he thought personal connections to candidates would likely determine the outcome in the Dane County Board race, with District 5 mainly populated with students.
He added if University of Wisconsin freshman O’Hagan managed to bring out voters in the dorms, he could beat senior Wyndham Manning, but if Manning turned out the off-campus vote, he could take the seat.
“Either way, I’m happy we’re going to have a good progressive on the board. I really sympathize with these guys,” Kiefer said. “They’ve really taken a beating on it in the press this last week.”
The “Frankenstein veto,” a measure that currently allows the governor to delete words from legislation and re-arrange the pieces to create essentially new law, is also up for debate on the ballot.
Voters will vote on a constitutional amendment that would end the practice.
“We think that what happened with the budget last time, it’s just been horribly misused,” Mikolajczak said, adding the College Republicans support the amendment. “With the current administration in this state, it just lets things run amok. It completely undermines the authority of the Legislature.”
