The risk of getting caught in bad weather or long lines didn’t deter voters in one West Side Milwaukee neighborhood last week.
In Enderis Park, some evening voters had to wait in the rain in lines that snaked out of the polling site for 45 minutes to an hour, according to Lisa Sink, a poll observer at Enderis Park Playground, 2938 N. 72nd St.
“From 3:30 to 8, it was just nonstop, until maybe a few minutes before 8 for Ward 90,” Sink said.
Of Milwaukee’s 356 voting wards, Ward 90 in Enderis Park had the highest turnout among registered voters at 92%, according to unofficial ballot results from the Milwaukee County Election Commission.
The city of Milwaukee had 67% of registered voters cast ballots in the general election, compared with a 70.6% turnout among registered voters in all of Milwaukee County, according to the unofficial results. Both the city and county saw lower turnout than in the November 2024 election.
While many factors weigh on voter turnout, the Ward 90 area just north of Wauwatosa has an active neighborhood association, engaged residents and a convenient polling place that may have contributed to its city-high turnout rate, according to Patricia Yahle, president of the Enderis Park Neighborhood Association and a longtime resident.
“I do think that it’s just a level of comfort that people have and the ability to walk to the polling place,” she said.
Busy election and lines
Sink, a communications marketing strategist who works with school districts, is a volunteer poll observer with the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. She was assigned to observe the Enderis Playground Fieldhouse, a polling site for Wards 89 and 90.
For six hours starting at 2 p.m., she monitored activity there and was impressed with the professionalism of the poll workers and voters.
“No one got upset at the long lines and wait,” she said. “And it really makes me feel good that our elections are safe and secure.”
Not everyone voted onsite Tuesday, Nov. 3 – absentee ballots made up 259 votes in Ward 90 out of 901 total. Voters there heavily favored Crowley.
Residents who completed the registration process onsite were then next in line to vote, which may have contributed to the long line, according to Sink.
Sink said poll workers told her there were 118 registrations on Tuesday, which is unusual but not as high as the 200 registrations in the presidential election in 2024.
Yahle said she wasn’t surprised because the neighborhood typically turns out for national elections or elections they think might have a high impact, like a referendum on the ballot.
In November 2024, Ward 90 had 88.6% turnout among registered voters.
More about the area
The neighborhood named after pioneering Milwaukee educator and recreation director Dorothy Enderis is made up of mostly single-family homes with some multifamily apartment buildings, Yahle said.
According to the American Community Survey’s 2024 5-year estimates, the median age is 38 in census tract 58, which contains most of the ward. The population is 56% white, 37% Black, 12.7% Hispanic and 3.9% of residents who identify as two or more races or ethnicities.
“It’s a wide gamut of people,” Sink said. “Different ethnicities, different ages, I even saw a priest.”
The median household income is $84,904, about 1.5 times the median in Milwaukee, according to census data.
The Enderis Park Neighborhood Association hosts a number of activities and events during the year, including a farmers market, Concerts on the Green, holiday decorating contests and trick-or-treating.
Yahle said the association shares information about upcoming elections at its information table during events, such as when an election is and where voting takes place in the neighborhood.
“The activities basically are not political activities, but they’re an opportunity for people to get to know each other, share ideas, to talk among themselves, to get to make friends within the neighborhood,” Yahle said.
This communication link helps get and keep people interested in all types of activities that impact the area, she said.
She mentioned that some residents are involved with political action groups that actively share information with neighbors during election season, and others are poll workers at the site.
“They’re small little things, but they make a big difference,” Yahle said.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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