Photo Via City of Milwaukee - city.milwaukee.gov
Mayor Cavalier Johnson
Mayor Cavalier Johnson made the right decision appointing a new executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission. It appears that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is trying to make voters concerned about the city’s election administration by catastrophizing the needed change in the management of the Elections Commission. Mayor Johnson replaced the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission with Paulina Gutierrez, the woman who has been the deputy for well over a year and has a stellar reputation. The mayor inherited the current Milwaukee Election Commission executive director when he was first elected in a special election. The executive director serves a four-year term, and it expires when the m,ayoral election occurs every four years. It is the mayor’s job to appoint or re-appoint that position after the mayoral election in April.
The Milwaukee mayor is elected every four years on the same four-year cycle as the President of the United States, the mayor is elected in April and the president is elected seven months later. Any time the mayor wants to make a change at the end of a term, it is done seven months before the presidential election because the two elections are on the same four-year cycle. So, this whining by the Journal Sentinel that it is too close to the presidential election to make a change appears to be something out of the Donald Trump playbook to try to sow doubt on the administration of the November election in Democratic rich Milwaukee County.
Why the Need for the Change?
There were a number of serious reasons to make this change and we applaud the courage of Mayor Johnson to make this necessary change knowing that the right-wingers and the Journal Sentinel will be trying to make this into something that is not good for Milwaukee. As they often fail to do, the Journal Sentinel needs to think these issues through, do some serious research and try to understand the basics of Democracy.
As we know, the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County have a relatively high number of citizens who are not voting. The job of the Elections Commission is to not only ensure that the elections are run according to the laws of the state of Wisconsin, but also to encourage the maximum participation of the voters. Milwaukee and Wisconsin elections have a reputation for being very honest and well run. However, one political party tries to minimize the voter participation in the city because Milwaukee, like virtually all major cities, votes more Democratic than their rural and suburban neighbors.
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How Does Milwaukee Compare to our Second Largest City?
Some of this lower voter participation is due to decisions by the election commission led by the executive director others are beyond its control. Compared to our second largest city, Madison, our voter participation is disgraceful. The are many reasons for this. Some of the reasons are socio-economic and the Election Commission cannot do anything about that, but the Election Commission can control what they legally can control, and we need some changes. For example, it is legal to have early voting and the city can locate as many early voting locations as they choose. They can also determine the hours. Until recently, Madison which is obviously a smaller city had five times as many early voting locations. That obviously makes it more convenient to early vote and ensures shorter voter lines. That has recently changed, but Madison still has two and a half times as many early voting locations. It was 30 in Madison and six in Milwaukee. Now it is 30 in Madison and 12 in Milwaukee. We applaud that.
Also, the hours of early voting in most of Milwaukee’s locations are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and four hours on Saturday which makes it difficult for working people with jobs that don’t have much flexibility to vote. Milwaukee could easily have some 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or even 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. early voting days at virtually no extra costs since there are no additional employee hours. Simply staggering the hours is what one would do if they were interested in encouraging individuals to vote. The former executive director refused to make these changes and a number of others.
Mayor Johnson made the correct and courageous decision, and the Journal Sentinel should try to get beyond taking cheap shots at good, elected officials who are trying to do what is best for their constituents.
Louis Fortis is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Shepherd Express and served in the Wisconsin State Assembly.
