Wisconsin Elections Commission tried extra steps to train National Guard, new poll members

GREEN BAY (WLUK) -- While Green Bay leaders say the need to train National Guard soldiers is one reason it turned down the extra help, the head of the state's elections commission says it had already prepared guard soldiers.

Meagan Wolfe, administrator for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, says the commission trained the National Guard members so local clerks wouldn’t have to.

Normally training poll workers is the municipality's job, but Wolfe says the elections commission took the extra step knowing clerks would have their hands full with the unique election.

However, Mayor Eric Genrich says he had concerns the commission’s training wouldn’t have been enough compared to what the city normally provides.

“Typically it's a day-and-a-half of pretty in depth training that folks receive, so that was one concern,” said Genrich.

Genrich says another issue was the city wasn't aware the National Guard was available until it decided on only having two polling locations. At that point, he says the city had enough poll workers for those two sites.

Green Bay voters had to wait more than four hours in some instances to cast their ballot at the city's two polling locations. Genrich says the city will be reviewing what happened on Tuesday in hopes of improving for the upcoming elections in August and November.

More than 2,400 Wisconsin National Guard members were ready to help at local polls Tuesday, at no extra cost to the municipality.

Ashwaubenon accepted the help of 12 soldiers and airmen, allowing it to keep all six of its typical polling locations open.

“All the airmen and soldiers were very courteous, very professional, quite frankly very upbeat in the conditions with which we all have right now,” said Patrick Moynihan, Ashwaubenon’s clerk.

Moynihan says the soldiers told him they had at least three hours of election day training before they were sent to the village.

“We decided to put together an entire training curriculum for new poll workers and for the National Guard,” said Wolfe.

The training included public health guidelines, voter registration, line management and proper sanitation.

“So we created a whole series of training videos and the Guard members all took those videos on Sunday or on Monday after they reported to their armories to go onto duty they completed all that training,” said Wolfe.

The commission says it made the videos available to clerks who wanted to train other community volunteers, but didn't have time to do it themselves.

Green Bay alderman Chris Wery says he will ask the city council to request an independent investigation by the Wisconsin Elections Commission into Tuesday's election.