‘A Day That Will Live in Infamy’: This Is What It Looked Like When Wisconsin Forced In-Person Voting During a Pandemic

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As footage of Wisconsin’s crowded polling stations flooded the internet Tuesday, public health officials and civil rights advocates condemned the state’s Supreme Court and Republican legislative leaders for allowing in-person voting during the coronavirus pandemic and thwarting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ last-minute efforts to address voter safety concerns.

“It’s not going to be a safe election. People are going to get sick from this,” Brook Soltvedt, a 60-year-old textbook editor who is in charge of running the polling place at Thoreau Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin’s capital, told The Cap Times.

Soltvedt added that though she thinks “the city has done about the best that they can do,” she worries that the election will cause voter confusion and health consequences. In an effort to protect her 77-year-old husband, Soltvedt said she plans to “strip in the garage, put my clothes in the washer, and go downstairs for two weeks….”

An election official checks in a resident at a drive-up polling place set up outside of Roosevelt Elementary School on April 7, 2020 in Racine, Wisconsin. The polling place was set up to offer drive-up voting where residents voted from their vehicles but it offered one outdoor voting booth for residents who walked to the polling place. The extreme measures were put in place to make the process safer for residents and election officials as the state continues its shelter-in-place order to help curtail the spread of COVID-19. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)