APPLETON, Wis. (WFRV) — “Oh, it’s a big day for everybody,” Jeanne Roberts of the League of Women Voters of Appleton said Tuesday. “It’s national voter registration day.”
Roberts says registering to vote matters.
“It is a huge deal,” she said, “but it’s an easy huge deal. So anybody can do it in five minutes or less, even somebody like me who’s not real computer literate.”
2020 saw record breaking crowds at the ballot boxes with the presidential election on the line.
“I think we saw it across the state, you know, record high numbers of voting,” Anjali Bhasin of Wisconsin Conservation Voices said, “and we really want to be able to reach those folks again and really keep building momentum, you know, build off the excitement from last year.”
Wisconsin’s next election day is set for Tuesday, April 5th 2022,
“The local elections are as important,” Roberts said of the upcoming elections, “but they’re just not as flashy and they don’t get as much of the attention.”
Bhasin agreed that voting in local elections is important.
“So many decisions that impact our lives on an everyday level are happening on a local level,” she said.
Getting people registered to vote has been complicated by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s made it more difficult, but it’s also been an opportunity for us to be more creative,” Roberts explained.
They’ve had to come up with new, inventive ways to get the word out: including on your cup of coffee.
“Stickers on each of the Starbucks coffee cups, with a QR code on it,” Roberts said, explaining the League of Women Voters of Appleton’s latest project, “so all you have to do is hold your phone up to the QR code and it will take you directly to the MyVote.Wi.Gov website.
Some of the new ideas might just make their way into a post-coronavirus pandemic world.
“The unexpected opportunities that we want to keep and continue,” Bhasin said, “and then what are some of the things we want to fold back in, and how do we move forward in a way that’s gonna be most effective and really reach the most people?”
CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW YOU CAN REGISTER TO VOTE IN WISCONSIN
