8 Votes In Wisconsin

Working with Souls To The Polls & Black churches as a driver for the 2020 Presidential Election

In November of 2020 I drove from NYC to Wisconsin for Election Day, so I could drive what turned out to be eight people to the polls. I was 38 and I had never politically volunteered before, but I had a car, and access to my mom’s lake house near Milwaukee. So if I could tangibly help the vote count in one of the handful of magical states the Electoral College allows to matter, I thought it would be inexcusable not to.

We’ve all been assaulted with texts urging us to do SOMETHING to save democracy, and that something usually = “send us money.” Does the money help? Probably! But I can’t feel or see it helping. I preferred to do something where I could see my effort become a literal vote. With a connection to Wisconsin, where Trump won in 2016 by 0.77%, I started looking there.

Milwaukee experienced a huge amount of voter suppression. In the spring, the entire city only had five open polling sites out of what was supposed to be 180. Thousands who requested absentee ballots didn’t receive them in time to vote, and you’d have to be an idiot or a racist (my guess, a little of both!) to not see the interference going on across American cities as a targeted effort to disenfranchise voters of a very specific demographic. 

So, I called the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County and was given a phone number for Norma with Souls To The Polls, a group that works with Black churches and gives free rides on Election Day. Norma was extremely cheerful, but it was very clear this was not some slick, super professional organization. This was real volunteer shit. She wrote down my email address by hand, and it took a couple tries to get me actually receiving the emails, but eventually we got there.

The Zoom orientation had maybe 10 minutes of actual information stretched over three very friendly hours that carried me from an Indiana rest stop all the way into my mom’s Chicago-area home. I walked in after 12 hours of driving, after midnight, still listening to the Zoom, masked up (pandemic, pre-vaccine, remember that?),  hugging my Mom and her slightly confused, perfect dog.

Volunteers would work as dispatchers on Election Day, relaying contact info to drivers, who were each assigned to a zone of the city. The people we would be driving had trouble getting around on their own, and this would be one-to-one, door-to-door service. I was assigned to Zone 7, which contained Miller Park, where the Brewers played.

My mom loaded me up with a cooler full of waters, and a car air freshener to keep my volunteer Uber rating at 5 stars. Bringing stranger after stranger into my car isn’t exactly what a doctor would order in the middle of a pandemic, but my youngest brother who is an ER doctor in Chicago hooked me up with some good N95 masks to do the best we could.

Election Day began poorly. I was shaving in the morning, before making the hour drive up to Milwaukee, and a hair from my beard landed ON my eyeball. In 20 years of shaving, this has literally never happened. To kick off a very long and stressful day, I spent 10 minutes staring at my own eyes in a mirror, trying to get a single hair off my iris. This hair felt like a vote for Trump. Spiritually, it was the second Trump vote after I got a speeding ticket in Ohio from a cop who made a point of leaning in my window unmasked, like he wanted a kiss.

Once I fixed my eye, I started driving north on the Kennedy Expressway and got my first assignment. I’d be picking up a woman named Delores, who would also need her nurse to go along for the ride. I was fucking PUMPED. If your name is Delores, you are at minimum, slightly older than my mom, you go to church, and I wanna drive you somewhere. 

I scouted the grade school that would be her polling place and found where to park so workers could bring the ballot out to the curb. I called Delores, then waited at her front door. She and her nurse walked out, and the very first thing Delores said was, “I know you.” 

Me: Oh yeah? Have we partied before?

Delores: No, you’re on my TV.

This is true. I’m a stand up comedian and I’ve done a number of TV things, but mostly what she would know me from is a truTV show that I did 200 episodes of that never stops rerunning. It’s called TruTV’s World’s Dumbest and it’s probably on right now, as it frequently is at laundromats and airport bars. On that show, they would play viral video clips, and a mix of comedians (me) and D-list semi-felons (Tonya Harding, Leif Garrett) would pop up and comment on the videos. If I was Delores, I would also find it strange that one of those people was picking me up to vote at 9 a.m. on the outskirts of Milwaukee.

Delores: Is this some, Hollywood-to-the-vote thing? You taping this?

I assured her, no, I actually just have so much free time and election anxiety, that I literally just drove here from New York yesterday. She’s not on camera, I’m not an Impractical Joker, and unfortunately, I have also not been on camera for about a year. It’s just us. 

Her nurse was nice, if not terrifically helpful. I helped Delores into the passenger seat, and the nurse called her boyfriend and unsuccessfully tried to explain to him who I was for a while in the backseat.

We drove over to the school, Delores filled out her ballot, and the volunteers took it inside to run it through the machine. 

After a few minutes, the ballot workers returned and said the ballot was rejected. I asked why, and they said “strange marks.” I was pissed. I looked at the ballot, and maybe she colored a little outside the lines on one selection, but this was a very clear ballot. We asked for another ballot, and this time I would fill it out for her. I signed my name into a notebook with my address as an assistant for the ballot. They took that one in to run it, and as they did, Delores could tell I was fuming. I knew we’d get hers counted, but if this was happening to her, with a ballot that looked totally fine, and a fairly aggressive (white, male, straight) advocate sitting next to her in her car, I was already spinning with the idea of how many other ballots would get rejected for no reason, leading people to give up. Delores, however, wasn’t sweating it.

“Oh I can wait,” she said. She then told me about how long she had to wait to vote for Barack Obama in 2008. “I went after a shift, and we waited seven hours. Things closed, but we were in line, and we weren’t going anywhere.” Seven hours, for one vote. I told her I had never waited that long for literally anything in my life. She said she waited even longer to pay her respects to Coretta Scott King in Georgia. 10 hours. “This is nothing, we can keep doing ballots, I’m free” she said.

One of us was preemptively angry, one of us was patient. One of us expected things just to work, the other one wasn’t surprised in the least about any bullshit coming her way. 

While waiting, we talked about places we had lived. She was excited to hear I lived in Queens – she had lived there, too, and missed the food. She also had lived in Vegas, Florida, Chicago, and Atlanta. She lost her vision in one eye about ten years ago, had a pretty bad cough, and a little trouble breathing. 

I complimented her sparkly hat. “It’s my voting hat,” she said. She said she bought another one just like it, just in case this one got messed up. I said I did the exact same thing with the Jordan 10s I was wearing. Can’t have enough of a thing you like.

Anyway, since I technically filled out the ballot, I got a sticker too.

Delores told me she lived in a complex where everyone had a vision-related disability, so I gave her my number and to pass on to friends who might need a ride.

Was the second person who called me also named Delores? You fuckin’ know it. Delores #2, baby, hop on in. By 10 a.m., I was solely in Milwaukee to help Deloreses get to the polls, and I was loving it. Two votes, but I can count that. I know those are real. And these were people who would really have trouble getting to vote, otherwise. It was a lot for them to get out of the house in a normal situation, much less a cold day in Covid world.

Then, there was down time. Too much. I was antsy, and so were the other volunteers. I got a call from another driver in my zone, asking if I needed any help. He happily told me, “anecdotally, I know 11 friends who voted for Trump last time. Two aren’t voting, two switched to Biden, and six are dead!” So, by that metric, and all my Deloreses, seemed like we were making progress.

I drove to a few of the other voting sites in my zone to see if they needed help. I wasn’t finding much use for myself besides picking up instructional signs that had blown over in the wind at the Milwaukee French Immersion school.

Weeks earlier, I contacted a Milwaukee County Supervisor whose name I found in an article about voter suppression in Milwaukee, and he Facebook messaged me to see if I could help get people who mistakenly went to the wrong polling location over to the right place. This was not with Souls to the Polls, but it was something.

I didn’t see a single line of significance anywhere until I went to West Allis, a location just outside Milwaukee proper. A group called #ChefsForThePolls had a food truck set up, and they were giving free food to anyone in line. 

I had BBQ in my car as I waited for another call, and the next one wasn’t for a driver...or at least, not a car driver. A woman in a wheelchair just needed to literally be wheeled down to her polling place, so I drove 20 minutes uptown to get to her and get to pushing.

The dispatchers were very nice, but when I would check in, they kept saying it was fine if I called it a day. Drivers were working in two hour shifts, and I had to emphasize: I drove here from New York. I’m not going home early. After this, I’m going to my mom’s cabin, by myself, to quarantine, and endure the results of this election in isolation. It’s gonna get weird! So I’d really like to be actively helpful while I can. But, while I had time, and thinking of that isolation…

My friend Josiah and I had a tradition on election days in New York, where we would buy good scotch, go to my apartment and get loaded while we watched what Hell (or ideally, Purgatory!) was coming our way. As of 2016, that tradition now had mixed results.

I stopped by a small liquor store and perused the scotches, but Glenlivet was out, as it failed in 2016. What did catch my eye: James Buchanan scotch. Buchanan, you may remember from history class, was a famously terrible one-term President. Boom, perfect vibes for the day. That would be my roommate for quarantine.

There were a couple more people I made fairly routine runs with, but the last of the day is the last I’ll detail. After pestering the dispatcher for anyone remaining, he gave me an address of a group living facility with the warning that this might be even trickier than the rest, because it was a woman named Betty who was both blind, and needed physical help walking. When I picked her up, there was no nurse along for the ride. It was just me and Betty. 

Try to imagine the amount of effort it takes for someone like this to even contact a group that could help her get to the polls. Now try to imagine the faith this person has to put in a stranger. She’s just getting in some dude’s car, alone, and trusting everything is legit. Pretty fucking inspiring, if you ask me.

And Christ, was it an effort. We got to her polling place, which was not one I’d been to that day, and it was near closing time. Unfortunately, the ID that Betty had on her wasn’t accepted. It was ID for her group home, and it didn’t count. Like I began the day when Delores #1’s ballot was rejected, I was furious. This woman had gone through all this to get her one vote in, and it was going to be for naught. A half hour of me talking to various (very nice) poll workers, trying to “let me speak to your manager” my way into a vote, was fruitless.

Me: Betty, do you have any other ID, anywhere? Even back in your room? 

Betty: Maybe in my fanny pack.

I hadn’t even seen Betty wearing a fanny pack.

Me: Betty, is it cool if I check it to see if there’s anything that could work?

Betty: Yep.

Well, okay then. Let’s go fanny pack fishing. Receipts, napkins, gum…and several uncashed checks.

Me: Betty did you know there’s checks in here? Like money, for you. 

Betty: Oh, maybe!

Me: Okay well, great! Put all these in your left pocket, so you know they’re all in one place, and you can deposit those tomorrow, cool?

Eventually, I found a state ID that worked, and she got a ballot. But, being blind, obviously she needed someone to read the options to her. So maybe 45 minutes into the process and feeling triumphant, I started to read the options, in order. 

Me: Joe Biden, Democrat…

Silence. Long silence. I had just assumed, and everyone else during the day had been pretty open about their voting preference. And it was the Milwaukee Democrats who put me in touch with everybody. I didn’t even CONSIDER that maybe I was busting my ass to get a Trump vote here at the end of the day. What an idiot. 

So here’s the moral test, right? You could see an angel on one shoulder, and a devil on the other – but OBVIOUSLY, I was going to fill it in how she wanted it filled in, even if it was the thing I was trying so hard to stop from happening. So I kept reading.

“Donald Trump, Republican…”

Again, more silence. Then, with a question mark:

“…Jo Jorgensen???”

That was the Libertarian candidate. You’ve rightfully forgotten, and I did too.

Then she chose: “The Dem-ocrat! Joe Biden.” 

On the one hand I felt like: phew. On the other, I was glad to realize, dammitt, I was gonna fill in that fucking Trump circle if she wanted it. I’m not evil! At least not for that reason! Great news.

Turns out Betty just wanted to hear every option before voting, and why the hell not? She told me she almost never gets out, and it took us almost an hour to get to this point, so let’s let it breathe. She said she didn’t vote in the previous election, and a lot of her family didn’t either, but this time, she felt like she wanted to make a little difference. Enjoy the process, Betty.

And she really did. She had me read every single name and party affiliation, in every local race, before taking a breath and simply saying, in a sing-song voice, “A dem-ocrat!” It was delightful.

I dropped Betty off, thanked her, and then drove 40 minutes to my mom’s lake house, where I would now be spending 10 days alone. 

Here’s a maybe surprising thing, at this point in the story: I did all this work to get Biden over against Trump, and I never even voted for him in the primary. After turning in a blank ballot this year with the Uncommitted Movement to protest what this administration was watching happen in Gaza, I actually never voted for Biden (or Harris) in a primary, ever. Anyone who actually knows me knows I’m no superfan of the Democratic Party as an entity, but I also don’t think there’s a morally (or less importantly, intellectually) defensible case to be made for the other choice. It’s not close. I want women to have control over their bodies, and I don’t want poor people to die. So, I do this.

Back at the lake house, James Buchanan (on ice) accompanied me on the couch as I flipped between literally all the networks, unable to take any commercial break whatsoever. Not healthy, but I couldn’t do anything else, either. You might remember, if you were someone who didn’t want Trump to stay in his White House, night one results looked pretty bad for a pretty long time. Because Republicans voted in person and so many Dems voted by mail, there could be a “red mirage” as red votes were counted first. 

Cool! The “Red Mirage” made me feel like I was going to do a The Shining in this cabin, totally by myself. It was bleak as F, and it felt like it was getting bleaker as the night went on, and I couldn’t move, or sleep. I was in a place beyond tired, but I didn’t actually find sleep until sometime after 4 a.m.

Incredibly, the 20-30 minutes I slept that night covered the literal moment that Milwaukee officially flipped from red to blue, which felt like maybe a hallucination as I woke up. Would have been fun to see live, but oh well.

It’s hard to remember what I did over the next few days – sporadically worked out, read magazines in a lawn chair outside, googled how hard it would be to get Irish citizenship – but the vibes got slowly better as Steve Kornacki told us where the mail-in votes were coming, and I found myself having newfound affection for Philadelphia, and various Atlanta-area counties. Maricopa! That’s fun to say.

I kept cycling through mini naps on the living room couch instead of reaching actual sleep. I’d have MSNBC or CNN playing its simulcast on SiriusXM while I would drive into town for supplies. I was in the drive thru line at Starbucks when it went official. In New York, people were celebrating, yelling, honking, hitting pots and pans. It was beautiful. 

Where I was? It was dead silent. Haha. Different neighborhoods, these two places. 

I missed getting to be in my favorite city on such an electric day, but it was cool to be where I was, too. Turns out, Trump was kicked out, for four years at least. And Biden won Wisconsin by .62%, 20,682 votes. I’m glad I got to help eight of them.