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Some Voting Information Before the April 7th Election

Tuesday, March 17th, 2020 -- 1:36 PM

-The April 7th Elections are fast approaching.

I spoke with Melissa Kono, CNRD Agent for Clark and Trempealeau Counties, and she explained how you can get registered to vote if you aren’t registered already or need to re-register.

“There’s a couple different options. One, from now until March 18th people can go on the myvote.wi.gov site and if they have a current license or photo ID card, they can register to vote online and then that insures that they’ll be on the poll list on election day. They can register with their municipal clerk. If they need to know who that person is, also the myvote.wi.gov site provides that information. If you enter an address, it will tell you who the clerk is. They can register by mail and, also, Wisconsin still allows for same day registration, so even if those other options don’t work out, the people can still register at their polling place on election day.”

She then explained what’s on the April 7th ballot.

“So, April 7th is our presidential primary. So, all the excitement in the news right now is really centered around that presidential primary. So, there are several candidates under the Democratic option and Donald Trump appears as the Republican Party’s candidate. But there are also some other races on there. The State Supreme Court race is on that ballot. There’s county board races. There’s city council races, school board races and, depending on where you live, there’s some school referendums as well.”

If you can’t vote on election day, you can request an absentee ballot and Melissa explained how you can do that.

“Registered voters can go on the myvote.wi.gov site and request an absentee ballot and then the municipal clerk will mail that ballot to them. And then you fill it out and mail it back to your clerk and you don’t have to worry about election day and whether you’re going to be able to get to the polls in time. Polls are open from 7am-8pm, but sometimes people might be traveling. And you don’t need a reason for voting absentee. If you feel you might need an absentee ballot, that’s certainly within your right to request one. I just tell voters to leave enough time for mailing because the absentee ballots are mailed to the voters and then you have to return them and they have to be back by Election Day to the clerks. So, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of mailing time, especially if you request one late.”

When you go to vote on April 7th, you need a photo ID.

“It has to be an approved form of photo ID. Most people use their driver’s license. It doesn’t have to have your current address on it to use it for photo ID purposes. Voters do need to present a photo ID when requesting a ballot at the polls. And so, the state issued photo IDs can be used if people don’t drive or don’t have a driver’s license. A passport can be used, a veterans ID can be used, student ID from a Wisconsin tech school or college. They do have to be a current student. They have to prove that with either a tuition statement or a course schedule. A tribal ID can also be used for photo ID purposes.”

“Now for voter registration, there’s a little more documentation that can be used for those purposes. Most people use a driver’s license for that, but if their address isn’t updated and they’re trying to register to vote, they can use a utility bill. Even a cell phone bill works just fine. A bank statement, a credit card bill. And a lot of people don’t even have a paper form of that. It’s fine to use it on your phone and show when you’re going to register to vote.”

You can learn more about the upcoming April 7th election by going to myvote.gov.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.