Wisconsin clerk opposes potential campus voting site: 'Students lean more toward the Democrats'

A Wisconsin clerk opposes a potential campus voting site.

(Image credit: Stephen Morton/Getty Images)

published 28 October 2016

A Wisconsin city clerk fought adding an early voting site near a college campus because "students lean more towards the Democrats." Green Bay clerk Kris Teske pressed the state's Elections Commission by email to oppose the polling station at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, even though the site would be open for all city residents to use, not just students. Long primary voting lines last spring led the courts to order more polling stations, The Nation reports, but Teske sought to evade the order by arguing that campus polling booths were "encouraging students to vote more than benefiting the city as a whole."

The Elections Commission later released a statement saying it "did not participate in the city's ultimate decision" on whether to open more absentee voting locations, Wisconsin Public Radio reports. Currently the only place to vote absentee in Green Bay's is Teske's office.

The emails from Teske were made public by One Wisconsin Institute, a liberal organization working to strike down a handful of Wisconsin voting restrictions, including its voter ID law.