City Hall Reminds Residents: Absentee Voting Window Closes August 7 At 4:30 P.M.

WAUKESHA — The City Clerk's Office at City Hall, 201 Delafield Street, is reminding residents that the in-person absentee voting window for the Aug. 11 partisan primary closes this Friday, Aug. 7, at 4:30 p.m. The office has kept the same hours, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., every day since opening the window on July 28, and says it intends to keep them through closing rather than extend, adjust, or in any way acknowledge that Friday snuck up on anyone.

Clerk's Assistant Patricia Morrison described foot traffic over the past week as "moderate but steady," a phrase she said applies equally to voters who arrive with a plan and voters who arrive to ask, politely, what exactly is happening on Aug. 11.

"We get a few every day," Morrison said. "They'll say something like, 'so there's an election this year?' And I have to tell them yes, there's always an election this year. That's sort of how it works."

The 12 To 15 Percent

By Morrison's informal count, roughly 12 to 15 percent of daily visitors to the Clerk's Office say the absentee window itself was their first notice that the Aug. 11 primary was happening at all. She said the office does not keep a formal log of this, but that staff has begun mentioning it to one another "kind of as a running total" over coffee breaks.

One such visitor, Roger Dahl, 57, of the town's north side, said he came in Monday afternoon to pay a water bill in person and left having filled out an absentee ballot application after a clerk mentioned the primary in passing. "I did not know," Dahl said. "I want to be upfront about that. I did not know, and now I do, and I'm handling it."

"They'll say something like, 'so there's an election this year?' And I have to tell them yes, there's always an election this year. That's sort of how it works."

— Patricia Morrison, Clerk's Assistant

Dahl said he intends to tell his neighbors, "probably three or four of them, the ones who'll actually listen," before Friday's deadline.

A Reminder From The Council

Councilman Gary Puchalski, asked Tuesday whether the city planned any additional outreach before the window closes, said he had personally reminded "at least a dozen" constituents at the Piggly Wiggly over the weekend, unprompted, and considered this sufficient for the moment. "I don't think we need a robocall for this," Puchalski said. "I think we need people to talk to their neighbors. That's basically what I've been doing at the deli counter."

Puchalski added that he found the 12 to 15 percent figure "not alarming, but noteworthy," and said he planned to raise it informally at the next council meeting, "not as an agenda item, just as a thing I mentioned."

Through Friday, 4:30 P.M.

The Clerk's Office confirmed the in-person absentee window closes promptly at 4:30 p.m. Friday and will not be extended for the Aug. 11 primary. Voters are asked to bring a valid photo ID and, per Morrison, "some idea of who's running," though she noted the office does not require the latter and several visitors have voted without it.

Morrison said she expects Friday itself to be the busiest day of the window, based on what she called "a pattern we see every cycle," and said the office would remain open through 4:30 p.m. sharp regardless of the line. "We close at 4:30," she said. "We have always closed at 4:30. I don't know what else to tell people."