City Clerk 'Wrongheaded' to Deny Students Voting Site Print
News - Articles for State & Local
Written by GBP Staff   
Wednesday, 26 October 2016 17:00

uwgb-studentDenying Early Voting Site at UWGB for Partisan Reasons is an Affront to our Democracy says Hansen.


GREEN BAY - State Senator Dave Hansen (D - Green Bay) said a recent report in The Nation in which the Green Bay City Clerk sought to deny an early voting location on the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay campus because she believed students were Democratic-leaning voters is an affront to our democracy.

dave-hansen-gb“Attempting to deny a person’s right to vote based on which party or candidate they support runs counter to the principles our country was founded upon,” said Hansen. “It is not only wrongheaded, but it is a decision that, in an attempt to give one party an advantage over another, is going to make it harder to vote for all students, even those who support Republican, Libertarian and Green Party candidates.”

The Nation reported Tuesday that Green Bay City Clerk Kris Teske expressed concerns about how UWGB students might vote as a reason for denying the bi-partisan request by students for an early voting site on campus.

“UWGB is a polling location for students and residents on Election Day but I feel by asking for this to be the site for early voting is encouraging the students to vote more than benefiting the city as a whole,” Teske wrote on August 26 in an e-mail to David Buerger, counsel at the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. “I have heard it said that students lean more toward the democrats….”

“As adults we try to teach our children they have a civic responsibility to vote and that their vote counts," said Sen. Hansen. "For many of these students this will be their first election in which they can vote. What does this say to them? How are they supposed to feel when an elected official is trying to make it more difficult for them to vote because that official disagrees with their politics?”

Hansen says the city should do everything in their power to correct this so that all students at UWGB, regardless of who they support, are able to vote without the problems that were encountered last spring.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 October 2016 17:31