NEWS

Wisconsin racing to get voters' website ready

Doug Schneider
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Barely two weeks before the next statewide election day, the people who run Wisconsin's voting information website are making last-minute changes in an effort to ensure that the site does what it says it will.

The site, MyVote.Wi.Gov, was undergoing updates and outright fixes Friday afternoon in advance of the Aug. 9 primaries. And upgrades are likely to continue this week, State Elections Commission officials said.

The biggest Friday fix repaired a glitch that made it so no one in Green Bay could look up his or her polling place via the site. Officials with the Elections Commission worked with the Green Bay City Clerk's Office to solve the problem after being alerted by a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reporter that part of the site wasn't working for anyone with a Green Bay address.

Mike Haas, the state's chief election official, said the problem stemmed from a missed deadline on Green Bay's end, and was fixed about 20 minutes after the reporter brought it to his attention. He acknowledged that some municipalities are almost certainly in the same boat, but said there is time to get them fixed before voters go to the polls for the Aug. 9 primary elections.

"The system is built for voters, and it does what it is supposed to do for voters," he said. "but if people find parts turning out not to be useable, we want to hear about it … We'll continue to look for ways to continue to improve the website."

Those include making instructions on how to use various sections of the website more prominent.

Multiple problems

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reporters, with the help of some readers, conducted almost 100 spot checks on the site Thursday and Friday after receiving complaints that parts didn't work. The checks found the site wouldn't identify the polling places for some users in Appleton, Oshkosh, and everyone in Green Bay, though the users typed in their addresses multiple ways, and sometimes used multiple web browsers.

Reporters found individual addresses in De Pere, Grand Chute and Milwaukee that didn't connect the user to any polling places. The site worked for other addresses in those communities.

Voting buttons.

And problems weren't limited to missing polling places. A Wausau-area man said the site told him he should be voting in Harding — an entirely different municipality from the one in which he lives.

"I live in the town of Scott, not Harding," said Michael Grunenwald. "Harding is at least 20 miles from my home."

Other readers worried that a person new to an area might end up not being able to vote if they waited until the last minute to use the website.

Ellen Sorenson said the site returned accurate polling place information for her previous addresses in Marinette and Metomen, but gave her an error message when she searched for the poll site associated with her condominium development in Ripon.

"It was disconcerting to not find any information," she said. "Lots of people here live in condos."

It's fairly easy to tell, several users said, that the site remains under construction. The "Find My Polling Place" form had asterisks by "street address" and "city" Friday night. But nowhere on the page did it explain what the asterisks mean.

And "what's on my ballot" didn't provide sample ballots when spot-checked for addresses in Green Bay, Oshkosh, Milwaukee, Mequon or West Allis.

Haas points out, though, that the website is only as good as the data supporting it. He said the site relies on data entered in the statewide voter registration system, WisVote, by clerks in almost 2,000 towns, villages and cities — and that some of those clerks need to provide further information.

"Results produced by the system are only as good as the data that is entered, and Wisconsin’s system of decentralized election administration relies on 1,854 municipal clerks and 72 county clerks to conduct elections at the local level," he said. The "structure … poses unique challenges, but it can also be a strength in that elections are conducted at the local level where municipal clerks and poll workers are most likely to have the greatest familiarity with their voters."

'Inconsistent … very frustrating'

And not all users of the site are critical of it. Patrick Wetzel, city administrator in Weyauwega, Waupaca County, said the site seems to be updated quickly and regularly.

"We just moved the location of a polling place last Monday, and it already pops up," Wetzel said. "And the mobile site works very good."

Yet even so, Brown County special voter-registration deputy Sally Sieber of Hobart said the site has Jekyll-Hyde qualities that make her work difficult.

"A few weeks ago, we started having problems using the site," she said. "It's totally inconsistent — you might get different answers to the same thing, five minutes apart."

Sieber said she understands that the people behind the site want to get it right, and is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Still, she said: "It's just very frustrating. There was no problem before, and now there is."

Users of the site have sent the elections commission about 100 emails through a link on the site, said Meagan Wolfe, the group's public-outreach coordinator. About 80 of those were questions, she said; fewer than 10 were complaints.

Correction: The MyVoteWi site went online in 2012; an updated version was launched this June. Because of incorrect information provided to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, the original launch date was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.  Also, the state is not under legislative mandate to re-launch the site. An earlier version of this story was incorrect on this point because of a reporter's error.

dschneid@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @PGDougSchneider

Keep us posted

Try it out the MyVote.Wi.Gov site, and email dschneid@gannett.com if you encounter problems.

Making it work

»Don't use punctuation: Periods and commas can render your address unsearchable. There's no need to punctuate on this site, no matter what your English teacher taught you. 

»Just because there's a space on the form, it doesn't mean you have to fill it: Haas suggests skipping the "Zip Code" portion of the forms. You do, however, need to type in your street address.

»Persistence pays: Try removing some details. Example: The site rejected this actual address, from Beloit: "412 ½ Pleasant St., Apt. 4." It also rejected "412 Pleasant St. Apt. 4." But when our reporter tried "412 Pleasant Street, 4," the site listed a polling place. 

»Don't wait 'til the last minute: Most questions can be answered — just not all at the eleventh our. Give folks some time to help you.

»If in doubt, ask: The site provides contact information for the local municipal clerk on the left side of the page. Your city, town or village clerk's office is the best place to start for questions about registration, polling places, and the like. You can also click a link on the bottom of the site to email the elections commission.