City Opens New Early Voting Site
Early voting has begun for spring primary election on Feb. 20.
City’s new early voting site at 6001 W. Capitol Dr. Photo by Graham Kilmer.
The City of Milwaukee celebrated the start of early voting for the spring election with the opening of a new voting center at the intersection of N. 60th St. and W. Capitol Dr.
The new location at 6001 W. Capitol Dr., replaces the early voting site at the Midtown Center Shopping Complex. City officials decided to move the site in 2023 after an Atlanta-based firm bought the building, tripling cost of the city’s lease and reducing the space offered for the voting site, as Urban Milwaukee reported.
Losing the Midtown site without a replacement would have been a blow to voting access for Milwaukee residents, particularly those living in the predominantly Black neighborhoods that surround the site.
And a blow to turnout in Milwaukee. “This is the busiest early voting center in the Midwest,” said Claire Woodall, director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.
The new site is located in two-story building that was originally a bank. It can be accessed by several bus routes, including Route 60, which runs north and south along 60th Street, and the RedLine, which runs east and west along Capitol Drive. The building is also ADA accessible and has parking for approximately 90 vehicles.
“We’re hoping that this site will be more convenient than our previous site,” Woodall said. The city is planning to be in the location at least through 2025.
The spring primary election is two weeks away on Feb. 20. There are six early voting sites scattered across the city, including the new site on Capitol Drive. City residents can vote at any site regardless of where they live. Residents can also drop off absentee ballots at the early voting sites, as a 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling banned unsupervised ballot drop boxes. Residents can also register to vote at the early voting locations.
Voters may notice that early voting is done digitally, using a touch screen system. The city does this to avoid the cost of printing paper ballots for the more than 300 voting wards. Early votes are not counted until election day and are processed at the city’s central count facility.
Community Leaders, Organizer Push Early Vote
A handful of community leaders and organizers joined the city’s election commission staff for the opening of the new early voting site Thursday.
Pastor Mose Fuller of St. Timothy Baptist Church and Souls to the Polls said he thought the best way to vote was to vote early.
“We used to vote over at Midtown, now we vote here,” Fuller said. “But it really doesn’t matter; the most important thing is for everybody to realize that we must vote.”
Fuller was joined by representatives of Working Families Power, Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC), League of Progressive Seniors and the Poor People’s Campaign, who all shared a similar message.
Woodall noted that during the past two decades Wisconsin has sunk to the bottom of rankings for voting accessibility in the U.S. The state has sunk from being among the top 5 states in the country to 47th, according to the Cost of Voting Index developed by political science professor Michael Pomante.
Meanwhile, the gap in voter turnout between Milwaukee and the rest of Wisconsin has grown to the largest in state history, Woodall said.
Early Voting Sites
The following sites are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Zeidler Municipal Building (841 N. Broadway)
- Capitol Drive Voting Center (6001 W. Capitol Dr.)
- Zablocki Library (3501 W. Oklahoma Ave.)
The following sites are open weekdays from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Good Hope Library (7715 W. Good Hope Rd.)
- Tippecanoe Library (3912 S. Howell Ave.)
- Washington Park Library (2121 N. Sherman Bl.)
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