A city committee discussed the practical applications gained from Tuesday’s mock election, which aimed to test the best methods of implementing voter ID laws in the city.
City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl described some of the difficulties she encountered during the test but said she also believed that the mock election was an important step in preparing for future elections.
“I’m really glad that we did it,” said Witzel-Behl. “We’d like to do it again on campus with voter registration as part of the mix.”
She added the election gave the Elections Commission actual data to work with in considering the best way to implement voter ID policy from rather than just observations.
She said officials tested out multiple methods of voting during the trial, each with varying levels of success. Separating the poll books and the ID portion from the poll book was the most successful in reducing the amount of time of the process, she said.
“This seems to make it even more essential to have well-trained and indoctrinated chief inspectors,” Rosa Garner, a chief elections inspector, said.
Elections officials also timed how long it took to complete provisional ballots, Witzel-Behl said.
The mock election gave the city a better idea about how upcoming elections should be run, allowing them to zero in on the most important areas for improvement, she said. Most importantly, she noted the same traditional elections setup would not suffice anymore.
She added the same setup would not be successful for every polling place, given the varying space constraints of each location, demonstrating the need for another trial election before the voting season rolls around.
Witzel-Behl also expressed concern about educating out-of-state students in particular. Many of the students that she talked to were unaware of the fact they had to surrender their out-of-state drivers license to obtain a Wisconsin ID card.
She mentioned some of her strategies for voter outreach on campus. She said some members of the Associated Students of Madison and the Teaching Assistants’ Association have been deputized to register students to vote, and she hopes to deputize house fellows as well.
“We’re going to have to start doing more outreach on campus,” she said. “Part of that is going to be holding another mock election, hopefully on campus, to allow students to participate.”
Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the League of Women Voters, discussed voter outreach in technical colleges. She said she believed that it may be easier to get voters registered in these schools.
“The only good thing is that, in general, tech college students have driver’s licenses in-state,” she said.
She also asked whether the Department of Motor Vehicles was planning on setting up mobile units to help expedite ID acquirement, but Witziel-Behl said that no funding had been offered to do this.
City election officials’ greatest concern was educating voters about what forms of ID are valid and how they can obtain them. Members are continuing to spend time doing voter outreach all over Madison.
Some of the group’s outreach included hour-long presentations that took place in various food pantries throughout Madison, with the aim of providing more information about voter ID and to allow people to ask further questions.
