City to hold June 28 registration drive
The city of Waupaca is among the municipalities in Wisconsin participating in a voter registration drive on Tuesday, June 28.
Waupaca’s voter registration drive will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day at city hall, 111 S. Main St.
People are reminded to bring Proof of Residency.
The most commonly used Proof of Residency documents are a Wisconsin driver’s license/ID, a bank statement, a pay stub or a utility bill.
Visit www.myvote.wi.gov to find more proof of residency options.
People may call Deputy City Clerk Sandy Stiebs at 715-258-4411 for more information.
More than 40 municipalities across the state will take part in the voter registration drive.
Some will have extended hours, additional staff or be set up in more convenient locations to accommodate those who want to register to vote or update their registrations with a name or address change.
Wisconsin laws allow people to register on all regular (government) business days, including on Election Day.
The one exception is the day before an election.
That exception went into place a few years ago, when in-person absentee voting became so popular some clerks did not have enough time to adequately prepare for the polls opening the next morning.
There are three voter registration periods in Wisconsin.
They are Open Registration Period, Late Registration Period and Election Day Registration Period.
The Open Registration Period is from the day after one election and up to 21 days before the next election.
For the Partisan Primary on Tuesday, Aug. 9, the Open Registration Period ends on July 20.
For the General Election on Tuesday, Nov. 8, the Open Registration Period is Aug. 10 through Oct. 19.
The Late Registration Period starts on the 20th day before an election and runs through 5 p.m. on the Friday before an election.
The Election Day Period is on Election Day.
Each registration period has different processes and requirements.
The closer one gets to Election Day, the more requirements, processes and statistical reporting there is.
In Wisconsin, a voter must be at least 18 years old on or before the next election.
Since the next statewide election is on Aug. 9, anyone who is 17 now and has a birthday on or before Aug. 9, may register now if they meet the rest of the requirements.
They must be a U.S. Citizen, not currently serving a felony conviction (either jail time or probation) nor been declared incompetent or ineligible to vote by a judge.
They must have resided in their homes for at least 28 days prior to Election Day in order to establish a new voting location.
They must show Proof of Residency.
The Proof of Residency needed to register is not the same thing as the Proof of Identity (photo ID) needed to vote.
During the Open Registration Period, people may mail their registration forms and a copy of their acceptable Proof of Residency to their clerk’s office. They do not need to do it in person.
People are encouraged to register to vote and to update their registrations during the Open Registration Period.
That is because there usually is not a waiting line in the clerk’s office during regular business hours like there is at the polls on Election Day.
The voter’s name and address are then preprinted in the Regular Poll Book.
Therefore, those voters may see how the database has their addresss and name spelled when they sign the poll book on Election Day.
They may notify election inspectors of typos if they see any.
When someone registers to vote on Election Day, the names of those voters need to be handwritten in two supplemental poll books.
When someone registers during the Late Registration Period (within 20 days of an election), that voter then needs a Voter Registration Certificate in order to vote.
Clerks have to complete and mail those certificates to new and updated voters, and they must then remember to bring those certificates to the polls.
Many municipalities need to hire additional staff to process late registrations in the weeks before an election.
All municipalities hire additional election inspectors to process Election Day Registrations.
The state mails postcards to everyone who registers or updates a registration on Election Day.