By james art MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – As Election Day approaches, security measures are at the forefront of people’s minds and there are some concerns in Dane County.
Many election officials will be at the Madison City-County Building Tuesday as voters turn in their last-minute absentee ballots, make corrections and wait for results.
Dane County Clerk Scott McDonnell says there are some security measures in place to keep their workers safe on Election Day, but he says more needs to be done.
McDonnell served as Dane County Clerk for 12 years and conducted two presidential recounts.
“We didn’t spend a lot of time on security when I first started, and that’s really changed,” he said. “We really had to change a lot of our systems here. It was too easy to just walk in off the street and walk in here.”
He says security measures have become even more important over the years, especially since the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Well, we’ve had threats made against election officials across the room,” McDonnell said. “The town clerk took them.” Megan Wolfe with the Election Commission. There are people here who have threatened people.”
From panic buttons, to Plexiglas, to keyboards, safety measures were put in place Tuesday to protect city and county workers. But there are still many concerns about the aging city and county building.
“Homeland Security did a review of our space and they really felt it was inadequate. And the same with the city of Madison, the space was really insufficient. Where did they keep the ballots, where the machines and it just wasn’t sure enough. So that was the impetus for the new building and also some of these short-term improvements.”
McDonnell hopes the next election will look a little different.
“The county has approved funding for a new facility that will be state-of-the-art for security,” he said. “So we’re in the middle of planning, which is taking a little bit of time. So that will be ready in the next year and a half. But in the meantime, you know, we’ve been able to make it harder for people to get in here.
The new polling center is being built in the old Ale Asylum building on Madison’s north side.
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