UW-Green Bay has polling location for spring election

GREEN BAY — The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay will host a polling location for the spring election for the first time in recent history.

Previously, the campus has only been a polling site for presidential elections, forcing students who live on campus to vote in another ward. The on-campus location should allow for a greater turnout for the April 7 spring election, which includes the races for Supreme Court justice, Department of Public Instruction superintendent, Court of Appeals District III judge and five Brown County circuit court judges.

“Earlier, we had three wards in one polling location,” Green Bay City Clerk Chad Weininger said of having student residents voting off campus. “No other voting place in the city was like that, and that puts a burden on the polling location.

“A location on campus should increase voter turnout, hopefully.”

The city worked with the UW-Green Bay Student Government Association, the College Democrats and the College Republicans student organizations to make the on-campus polling station a reality.

“This is a fantastic thing for our University,” said Student Government Association President Ricky Staley. “We’ve seen true bi-partisan cooperation, and the city has been great to work with on this. For the first time since I’ve been here, the April election will be 100 percent possible to get to for students living on campus.”

Staley feels having spring voting on campus will bring out more students for a lesser-known, yet still very important election.

“I think we’ll see a record turn out from UW-Green Bay for this spring election,” he said. “We won’t get the numbers we got in November, but I believe we’ll have an exponentially higher turn out compared to the last spring general election.”

In November, more than 1,300 students voted on campus in the presidential election.
The on-campus voting location is for a ward that includes about 2,000 on-campus student residents and a handful of homes near the campus, Weininger said.

“It’s a great opportunity for students to get out and show they care about the community by voicing their opinion by voting,” Weininger said.

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