Waukesha Primary Voters Navigate Downtown's One-Way Voting Gauntlet

WAUKESHA — With Wisconsin's partisan primary one day away, Waukesha's downtown one-way grid delivered its usual pre-election performance Monday morning, sending at least one voter on a 37-minute loop of the city center and prompting 12 phone calls to the city clerk's office before 9 a.m.

Dennis Hofmann, 52, of the Backslide Way neighborhood, said he left his house at 7:40 a.m. with what he described as "a comfortable amount of time" to vote before work. He arrived at his assigned polling place, Broadway Elementary, at 7:44 a.m. He did not find the entrance until 8:21 a.m.

The Circling

Hofmann said he first approached the school from the north on St. Paul Avenue, where the grid's one-way pattern forced him east onto a side street before he could turn back toward the building. He circled the block twice more from progressively different angles, at one point passing the same closed flower shop three times, before parking on Wisconsin Avenue and continuing on foot.

What he did not know, and what a poll worker informed him only after he had walked the full perimeter of the building, was that Broadway Elementary's voter entrance had been moved to the south side for this election, to accommodate a construction fence around unrelated roof repairs on the building's east wing.

"I want to vote. I have always wanted to vote. Nothing about this morning changed my desire to vote. It just took the desire and put it through some paces."

— Dennis Hofmann, Waukesha resident

Hofmann said he ultimately cast his ballot at 8:26 a.m., 42 minutes after arriving in the vicinity of the polling place, a span he noted was longer than the drive from his house to downtown, longer than his usual commute, and "not that much shorter" than an oil change.

Twelve Calls By Nine

The Waukesha City Clerk's office confirmed it had logged 12 phone inquiries by 9 a.m. Monday from voters reporting difficulty locating their assigned polling site, a figure a staffer described as "about what we budget for a Monday before a Tuesday." Ten of the 12 calls concerned downtown locations; the remaining two were, per the office's notes, unrelated questions about a resident's absentee ballot that had already been counted twice.

Councilman Gary Puchalski said the city had posted temporary signage directing voters to Broadway Elementary's relocated entrance, adding that the signage had been up "since Thursday, clearly visible, assuming a person is looking for it while also managing a one-way turn." Puchalski said he did not consider Monday's numbers alarming, noting that 12 calls by 9 a.m. was a decrease from the 15 logged by the same hour during the spring election.

Bob Krueger, 72, a retired city Department of Public Works supervisor, offered a broader defense of the grid itself. "People want to blame the streets," Krueger said. "The streets have not moved. The streets have never moved. What's moved is the entrance to an elementary school, and that's a school district matter, not a DPW matter, and I'd ask that this be reflected accurately."

Tomorrow

Hofmann said he plans to warn several neighbors before Tuesday's vote about the relocated entrance, though he acknowledged most of them vote at a different site entirely and would not benefit from the information. Asked whether he was aware of the Newhall Avenue underpass as an alternate route beneath the tracks, Hofmann said he was, and noted it would not have helped him, since Broadway Elementary is nowhere near the crossing.

The city clerk's office said it did not plan additional signage changes ahead of Tuesday's primary, and that any voter who calls before 9 a.m. asking for directions to Broadway Elementary will, as of Monday afternoon, be told directly to use the south entrance. Hofmann said he considered this a reasonable use of a Monday.