Waukesha Voters Head To Polls For Partisan Primary; Location Confusion Sends Some To Wrong Building

WAUKESHA — Waukesha County residents voted Tuesday in Wisconsin's partisan primary, and at least six first-time voters at the Village of Waukesha Municipal Complex, W250S3567 Center Road, arrived at the wrong entrance of the building after confusion over whether their ward voted in the Fire Station wing or the Village Hall wing.

The two wings share a single address, a shared parking lot, and, according to election officials, no meaningful visual distinction from the outside. Wards 1 through 5 vote in the Fire Station wing. Wards 6 through 11 vote in Village Hall. The two entrances sit roughly 140 feet apart, connected on the inside by a corridor that election officials describe as "not intended for public wayfinding" but which several voters used anyway, in both directions, more than once.

Sandra Kelley, 34, of South Street, said she followed the address on her sample ballot to what she believed was the correct door, walked past a table for Wards 6 through 11, and was informed only after presenting her ID that she needed Ward 3, which meant the other wing. She spent 17 minutes navigating the building's interior corridors before locating her actual polling place inside the Fire Station side.

"I want to be clear, I was in the building the entire time. That was never in question. I was extremely in the building."

— Sandra Kelley, Waukesha voter

Kelley said she passed the same trophy case, containing a scale model fire engine and a plaque commemorating the complex's 2003 dedication, three times before a maintenance worker pointed her toward a propped interior door she had not previously noticed was unlocked.

Three Notices, One Building

Election officials said they distributed three separate notices in advance of Tuesday's vote specifying which wing served which ward: one mailed with sample ballots, one posted to the county's election page, and one taped to both exterior doors of the complex as of Monday afternoon. All three notices, officials confirmed, used the phrase "Fire Station wing" and "Village Hall wing," terms that do not appear on any exterior signage at the building itself, which instead reads "Entrance A" and "Entrance B" in a font installed in 1998 and never revisited.

Poll workers stationed at the Ward 6-11 table said they had redirected 11 voters to the correct wing by 10 a.m., a figure that does not include voters who self-corrected without asking, or the two who left without voting and did not indicate an intention to return. Six of the eleven, workers said, had never voted in a partisan primary before and had not previously visited the complex in any capacity.

The Corridor

Councilman Gary Puchalski, who stopped by the complex Tuesday morning "to see the process in action, not to campaign, which I want on the record," said the shared corridor between wings had been discussed at a prior Common Council meeting as a possible source of confusion, though no signage changes were approved before Tuesday's primary. "The corridor connects two buildings that function, for election purposes, as two different buildings," Puchalski said. "That's a sentence I did not think I would have to say out loud, and yet."

Retired DPW supervisor Bob Krueger, who was not scheduled to be at the complex but arrived anyway "to observe the traffic flow, unofficially," said the confusion tracked with a pattern he has watched for years in municipal wayfinding. "You put two entrances 140 feet apart, you're going to get some crossover," Krueger said. "It's not a security issue. It's an inevitability issue." Krueger noted the complex's parking lot handled the morning's overflow "about as well as it handles the Fourth of July pancake breakfast," which is to say adequately, with one truck parked across two spaces near the flagpole.

Ned England, the Backslide Way resident who documents unrelated neighborhood matters for his YouTube channel Nedventuresout, was not present at the complex Tuesday, though a caller to the city clerk's office reportedly cited his prior video essays on downtown's one-way grid as a general explanation for why she "assumed nothing in this city points where it says it points." Officials could not confirm whether that theory applied to the Municipal Complex specifically.

By Afternoon

By 1 p.m., poll workers at both entrances said the rate of misdirected voters had slowed to roughly one per hour, which they attributed less to improved signage than to the building having, by that point, "already absorbed most of the county's confusion for the day." No additional notices were posted between the morning rush and poll closing.

Kelley said she ultimately cast her ballot at 9:47 a.m., voiced no complaint about the outcome of her vote, and said she now knows the layout of the Municipal Complex "better than I know my own basement." Asked whether she planned to use the Fire Station entrance in future elections, Kelley said she planned to use whichever door a poll worker was standing in front of.