Wisconsin Citizens Compelled to Vote in the Middle of Pandemic

Wisconsin presidential primary, including the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries, was held Tuesday in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, forcing voters to take risks and face long lines at limited polling sites.

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Although Wisconsin, like the majority of the states in the United States, has imposed a stay-at-home order on its residents in the face of the health crisis, the elections have not been postponed.

Most of the states with an election scheduled for April delayed their contest or opted for the by-mail voting only. But Republicans who have insisted on keeping the election on schedule in Wisconsin won two legal battles Monday.

The state Supreme Court blocked Democratic Governor Tony Evers's attempt to delay the election until June, and the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a federal judge's decision extending absentee voting, ruling that ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday to be counted.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission said Monday night that no results of Tuesday's voting would be released until April 13, the deadline for absentee ballots postmarked by Tuesday to be received.

Before the ballot, thousands of poll workers quit, leading Wisconsin's central city Milwaukee to reduce its planned number of polling places from 180 to just five. More than 2,500 National Guard troops were dispatched to staff the polls.

The legal move tarnished the Democratic presidential primary in Wisconsin, and the outbreak pushed former Vice President Joe Biden and rival Senator Bernie Sanders off the campaign trail.

Biden is leading over Sanders in the number of delegates who will choose the nominee at the national convention scheduled to be held in Milwaukee in August and not in July as originally planned, because of the pandemic.

Sanders called Tuesday's election "dangerous" and said his campaign would not engage in any traditional get-out-the-vote efforts.