MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee's spring primary has been quiet without any widespread issues, according to poll workers and voters on Tuesday.
Some people had to be re-directed to other polling sites due to some wards changing or confusion over where to vote the day of versus early voting sites.
The chief inspector at the Zeidler Municipal Building polling place said they had to redirect about 75 people to another polling site because some wards changed or because voters mistakenly thought the early voting site was also their day of polling place.
"I'd say 95% of them are just fine. It's usually closer to their home than our polling site is," said Linda Elmer, the chief inspector.
It’s Election Day in Milwaukee and all these poll workers are counting absentee ballots at a place called central count. There are roughly 22K absentee ballots to count. Republican poll workers are wearing red wrist bands/ Democratic poll workers are wearing blue wrist bands. pic.twitter.com/ZhR3Uf2sdW
— Charles Benson (@CharlesBenson4) February 15, 2022
Many people came out to cast a vote for Milwaukee's mayoral race. For the first time in nearly 20 years, Tom Barrett's name was not on the ballot.
"He's all I know. I never got to vote for Norquist. Those are the only two mayors that I could name off the top of my head in my lifetime," said voter Patrick Murphy.
Voters will narrow down a field of seven candidates to two for the April election.
"It's nice to see that there's a lot of different people running and people from all walks of life running so that we have some diversity in the candidates," said Emily Bruskotter.
"It's always good to have new people, new ideas move forward. Life is about progressions," said Michael Hagler.
"I'm ready to move on," said James Asbury.
The spring primary does not typically draw out lines of people, but the Milwaukee Election Commission's executive director estimated the city will see 25-30% voter turnout. So far, the commission has about 22,000 absentee ballots, not including Tuesday's mail or drop boxes.
Polls are open until 8 p.m.
