Must-Read Sherrilyn Ifill: “Never Forget Wisconsin”

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In that April 2 order, federal district court Judge William Conley starkly summarized the “dilemma” that would face thousands of Wisconsin voters unless the return date for absentee ballots was extended. “Voters who did not or could not vote absentee will be forced on election day to choose between exercising their franchise and venturing into public spaces, contrary to the public message to ‘stay home’ delivered by countless public officials during the course of this pandemic,” he wrote.

For black voters, this “dilemma” was particularly acute. COVID-19 is taking a harsh toll on black communities across the country, including in Wisconsin. Although black Americans constitute only 6 percent of the state’s population, they comprise nearly half of the state’s deaths from COVID-19. And, in Milwaukee County, where black Americans are 27 percent of the population, they represent 70 percent of those who have died from COVID-19.

Poll closures and the absentee ballot processing backlog also fell harshly on black voters. In Milwaukee, the city with the largest black population in Wisconsin, 180 city polling places were consolidated to only five polling places that would be open on Election Day, guaranteeing long lines and mass gatherings. And state measures taken to provide safer alternatives for returning absentee ballots were less accessible for black voters in Wisconsin. For example, the state expanded drive-by drop-off for absentee ballots in several cities, but 26 percent of Wisconsin’s black population does not own a vehicle.

The choice facing black voters was especially agonizing because of the unique history of their struggle for full enfranchisement. Death has far too often been the consequence for black Americans who insisted on exercising their full rights as American citizens by voting. Indeed, for the forebears of many black voters standing in those lines in Wisconsin, attempting to vote mere decades ago in countless instances meant a confrontation with death in counties and cities across the South.

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