A Closer Look at Voting in Wisconsin

In this abbreviated episode, Sara discusses opportunities to increase voter turnout among Wisconsin women and introduces listeners to our peer-to-peer Outreach Circle app that allows you to inform and inspire your own contacts to vote this year. Sara also reminds listeners to request your absentee ballots to vote from the safety and comfort of your home this year. 

This episode also features helpful resources like:

• VoteRiders - voter ID help  844-338-8743 
• Vote411.org 
• myvote.wi.gov
• Wisconsin Votes Wisconsin Wins campaign
• Election Protection Hotline 866-OUR-VOTE

This episode is sponsored by Perfect Imperfections 608

Transcript

August- Wide Away Script

OPENING:

Welcome to another episode of our Wide Awake in Wisconsin podcast. I'm Sara Finger, Founder & Executive Director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health. 

For those of you new to our podcast series, I want you to know that we launched Wide Awake in Wisconsin last November with a goal to build up our knowledge and insights into state level policy making and to help Wisconsities be prepared to make the greatest difference with their vote and voice. 

Maria Shriver was quoted as saying “Women: think about the power of your vote. Make it matter. Demand something for it. We are worth it.”

Well this podcast series is here to help women think about the power of their vote and to make it matter.

It’s now August and Wisconsin voters will have the opportunity to be heard through the ballot for the primary election scheduled for the 11th of this month. So this entire episode is dedicated to helping you be ready to vote this month and again in the General Election scheduled for November 3rd. It’s an abbreviated episode streamlined to focus on the info you need to vote and be heard. 

As I’ve noted on many previous episodes, our nation’s attention naturally gets drawn to DC and the White House but we must not and cannot ignore the importance of down ballot elections this fall. 

This November, every single one of the State’s 99 Assembly seats are up for election and half of our state senate - the even numbered seats - are up for re-election. With so much of the policy action or more often “inaction” happening at the state level, we encourage everyone and anyone who cares about women’s health, safety and economic security to pay close attention to these state level races and to use the upcoming elections to hold incumbents accountable and to learn about the positions of candidates seeking to hold these offices for the first time.

But before we really dig in, I’d like to recognize a valued business partner - Perfect Imperfections. It’s Founder and CEO Jasmine Banks is a friend of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health and we are proud to feature her and her incredible products this month. 

Can you imagine living in a world where every woman could take time to relax and replenish guilt free? 

 Perfect Imperfections empowers women to appreciate life daily and care for themselves with safe, chemical-free body products. And that is one of the most important ways to exercise self care. 

You can find Perfect Imperfections  handcrafted natural products online at  

Perfectimperfections608.org. Be sure to use code “WideAwake” to get 10% of your order.

I can personally attest the the quality and success of Jasmine’s products and hope you’ll check out all the amazing items she has to offer as we all work to prioritize self care. 





Turning out the Wisconsin women Vote

So before I provide some helpful resources on how to be heard through the ballot this year, I think it’s important to explore the history of voter turnout in our country and in our state.

It’s been said that the future is decided by those that show up - especially at the polls. 

In the 2018 midterm election, both men and women turned out at record rates when voter turnout increased by double digits among both men (11 percentage points) and women (12 points), compared with the 2014 midterm. 

And according to the Center for American Women in Politics, in recent elections, voter turnout rates for women have equaled or exceeded voter turnout rates for men. Women, who constitute more than half the population, have cast almost ten million more votes than men in recent elections.

But as positive as this all seems, what we need to take note of is that 35% or 800,000 Wisconsin women who could vote, didn’t vote in 2018 and in 2016, around 30% or close to 700,000 Wisconsin women who could vote didn’t vote. That’s a ton of women who left their voices and votes at home on important election days in the past four years!

While it may not be full these days with COVID,  did you know that Miller Park, now called the American Family Field holds 41,900 people? That means that the number of Wisconsin women who could vote but didn’t vote in 2016 would fill 17 Miller Parks. Just think about that for a moment. 17 Miller Parks worth of Wisconsin women did not vote in 2016.

And it’s not just a concern for us in Wisconsin. Records show that in the last Presidential Election in 2016, four-in-ten Americans who were eligible to vote did not do so.

While it’s now common to hear that women are more politically engaged than men. By some measures, that’s true: Women make up two-thirds of the activist community and have been a majority of voters in recent elections. But women also dominate among America’s most politically disengaged. According to a February 2020 Knight Foundation survey, the largest ever study of why people don’t vote, 53 percent of chronic nonvoters are female. 

Now I’m not here to shame and blame those that don’t vote. The truth is - many women simply are too busy to vote. 

Page Gardner, founder and president of the Center for Voter Information noted that women become politically disengaged because they’re overwhelmed. “Unmarried parents with young kids have an especially difficult time participating in civic life, she adds. The ‘second shift’ — taking care of kids after work — cuts into time spent following the news and, eventually, voting. Low-income nonvoters face housing and food insecurities too, exacerbated for women because of the gender pay gap.

9.5 million women in the US didn’t vote in 2016. While a significant portion 24% of women sat out the 2016 Presidential election because they didn’t like the candidates, the next 15% of women didn’t vote due to an illness or a disability and another 12% didn’t vote because they were too busy or had a conflicting schedule.

And I get it. So many women are juggling a million things and it doesn’t always work out to show up at the polls on a Tuesday even with the best intentions and planning. 

But let’s imagine what our policy landscape would look like if more women voted. Imagine if 500,000 more Wisconsin women would vote, could our policies and policy makers be more reflective of our needs and realities? Sadly, we can’t know until we achieve a higher level of voter turnout among women. But recognizing the extent of the policy threats to our health, safety, and economic security over the past decade, I have to believe that if more of us voted, more of us could be heard and quite possibly our wellbeing and lives wouldn’t be as used as political footballs.

Relational Voter Programs

So how do we increase voter turnout, especially among women in Wisconsin? 

We know women will remain busy and overwhelmed - especially now with COVID and with so many of us getting ready to juggle our work demands and the demands of our school aged children who are being asked to learn from home this fall. 

We have a lot on our plates and it’s hard to keep track of the deadlines and rules around voter ID, early voting, voter registration and the opportunities to vote early with an absentee ballot.

Well fortunately, we have each other. More than ever, a connected network of women in communities across our state have the opportunity to leverage their personal relationships to help other women be in the know.

So of course, I, Sara Finger, can send an email, make a call or text anyone asking them to vote this year - but if a person doesn’t know me or trust me - my ability to encourage a stranger to vote is limited.

But - if a friend offers a friend resources and information, that’s much more powerful and effective.

It’s called relational voter programming. The theory is simple: an individual reaching out to someone they already know is more effective than a volunteer reaching out to strangers. If you got a call from a campaign organizer asking you to vote, it would be easier for you to ignore it (assuming you even pick up the phone from an unknown number) than if your best friend texted you and asked you to vote.

By leveraging existing contacts, relational organizing can lead to a higher contact rate. You’re less likely to pick up the phone for an unknown number — even one with your area code — than you are to pick up a call from your parents or a friend. The ask comes from someone you trust — so instead of needing to spend time building a relationship in order to make an ask, you can take advantage of an existing relationship to get that person to register, vote, volunteer, or whatever you need them to do. We know social pressure works to get people to take action — and no one can exert more peer pressure than a friend or family member.

So to help individuals connect with and empower their own networks, the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health has created a Women Vote Wisconsin Wins campaign using Outreach Circle - a relational organizing app. 

Anyone can sign up and start sharing helpful information and resources about the upcoming elections today! Just search for the Outreach Circle app on your smartphone and enter code “MKH557” - again, that’s code MKH557”. By entering code MKH557, you’ll automatically be connected to our powerful campaign to increase voter turnout this year.

Once you download the app and connect to the campaign, you’ll see that we have set up real-time opportunities for you to push out helpful information to your friends and family. You then can use the sample messages and resources we provide and select any number of your contacts to pass them along to via text or email.

It’s super easy and takes only a few minutes out of your day to make a huge difference.

Again, I personally can spend 12 hours a day until November 3rd cold contacting people I simply don’t have a relationship with but I couldn’t possibly make the positive impact you as an individual could make by being a trusted messenger. 

So be sure to look for and download the Outreach Circle app today and again use code MKH557 to connect to our Women Vote Wisconsin Wins peer-to peer empowerment campaign. 

More information about our Women Vote Wisconsin Wins campaign including the Outreach Circle app can be found at wiwomenvote.org. Be sure to bookmark this site and use it as a home base for everything you need to know to vote this year!

I’m going to wrap up this episode by providing an important checklist of what you need to know to vote in upcoming elections.

Remember, Wisconsin’s primary election date is August 11th. If you haven’t already voted using an absentee ballot, visit myvote.wi.gov to find your polling place and make a plan to vote on Tuesday, August 11th. 

For any election in Wisconsin, the website myvote.wi.gov is incredibly helpful. By going to myvote.wi.gov, you’re able to:

• Register to vote online
• Check your registration status
• Request an absentee ballot
• Preview your ballot
• Find your polling place and
• Learn about voter ID requirements

In regards to voter ID, VoteRiders is a great organization dedicated to helping people get the ID they need to vote. Their website is voteriders.org and their hotline is 844-338-8743. In Wisconsin, voters are required to provide a photo ID to vote so don’t wait to get the help you need to get a Free state ID card if you don’t already have one another form of acceptable identification like a driver’s license or passport. Again, if you visit myvote.wi.gov, all the information you need about voter IDs in Wisconsin is available there.

And I want to emphasize how important it is this year to get the word out about absentee ballots or mail-in voting. Especially for the November 3rd election - no one knows what the world will look like at that time. Experts are predicting that as the weather gets colder and more of us are spending more time inside, we could very well see another spike in cases of the coronavirus. We have an incredible opportunity to reduce the spread and risk of infection with the option to vote absentee and vote from the safety and comfort of our homes this fall. I myself voted by absentee ballot in July for the August 11th election and I have already requested an absentee ballot be sent to me for the November 3rd election. I know many of us love to vote in-person on election but this year, one of the most powerful things we can do is to vote from home. And if requesting an absentee ballot makes you nervous that you won’t get the ballot in time or your vote won’t be counted, I recommend requesting your November 3rd ballot now and to visit myvote.wi.gov to check the status of your absentee ballot request and submission.

I also highly recommend saving the Election Protection Hotline number into your phone. The number is 866-687-8683 or 866-OUR-VOTE. You can call anytime to get all the information you need about voting and being counted in Wisconsin or anywhere in the US.

Another super helpful resource is the VOTE411 managed by the League of Women Voters.  If you visit the website vote411.org, you’ll find a wealth of resources about voting including information about the candidates running for office. Their site and their voter guides are super helpful for those who feel like they just don’t know enough about the down ballot races and candidates. It’s completely nonpartisan and the site won’t tell you who to vote for, but does provide background and insights to build your confidence when weighing in on state or local races. 

And if all of that weren’t enough, I have a special message I’d like to share from Cecile Richards Co-Founder of SuperMajority - an organization that affirms and builds women’s power and serves as a one-stop shop for advocacy, community building, and electoral participation aimed at transforming our country and building an intergenerational, multiracial movement for women’s equity.

Cecile recording

CLOSING:

Please know how grateful I am to you for taking the time to be Wide Awake with me in Wisconsin.

I hope you’ll encourage your friends and family to tune into this podcast series and give them the gift of education, engagement, and empowerment. We truly require a strong echo chamber right now to amplify a proactive, positive vision of what our policies and systems can and should look like. We need more people to appreciate the extent of damage done by our own state legislature to our health, safety and economic security and to mobilize Wisconsinites to hold their elected leaders at every level accountable.

And on that note, I’d like to remind you once more to visit myvote.wi.gov to get all the info you need to vote in August and in November.

I’d like to thank our producer Bria Brown, Cecile Richards for her special message to our listeners and to Jasmine Banks with PerfectImperfections.

Tune in next month as we take a closer look at everything you need to know to be informed, involved, and inspired to make a difference. 

In the meantime, stay safe and healthy. Wear your masks and practice social distancing. We’re not out of the COVID woods yet and if we’re ever going to get back to some sort of normal, we all need to do our part and be responsible for our own health and for the health of others and our economy. 

And remember if you don’t speak out, you can’t be heard. Look local and see yourself as part of the solution. 

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