Fed grant will help state track voter behaviors

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For the first time, Wisconsin will try to get a complete picture of voting behaviors in November.

A $2 million federal grant will help the Government Accountability Board keep track of how many ballots get rejected and why.

The study will track people who are turned away from the polls, how many absentee ballots are cast statewide, and a whole lot more.

Other states routinely get this information because their votes are gathered at the county level.

Here, municipalities run the elections. We’ll often hear about problems in some communities but not others.

The U.S. has about 9,000 election clerks. Wisconsin has 2,000 of them, which shows how decentralized our system is.

The Federal Election Assistance Commission has given Wisconsin $2 million to use a Web-based system to gather data from all 72 county clerks and 1,800-plus municipal clerks.

The Accountability Board and University of Wisconsin Extension personnel will show clerks how to use it.

Madison professor Barry Burden and five doctoral students will survey clerks after the election to see how well the system worked.

Wisconsin is one of five states getting federal grants to help track voters’ behavior. The others are Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania.

Tags: wisconsin, news, voter, tracking