Wisconsin Votes on Recall of Governor

MILWAUKEE — Sixteen months after this state erupted into one of the fiercest political wars in residents’ memories, voters began streaming into polling places on Tuesday to decide whether Wisconsin will remove Gov. Scott Walker, the Republican whose decision to cut collective bargaining rights for most public workers set off the fight.

Mr. Walker, who cast his own vote at a school in this city’s suburbs not long after the polls opened, is only the third governor in the nation’s history to face a recall election. Under Wisconsin’s provisions for recall — never before tested when it comes to a governor — Mr. Walker finds himself competing for his job against Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, the Democratic challenger.

While the outcome will decide Mr. Walker’s immediate political future, it is also being looked to as a sign about how this state will approach fiscal and other policies in the months ahead, how comfortable other states’ leaders will feel challenging collective bargaining rights and unions, and about President Obama’s chances come November in a key state that he won four years ago.

In many cities, lines were reported at polling places, even before they opened at 7 a.m. Central Time. In Janesville, not far from the Illinois border, about 20 residents waited among a landscape of ferns and flowers in front of the Rotary Botanical Gardens.

“It’s going to be a big one today,” said Lois Altmann, 83, a volunteer poll worker, as she taped maps of the county on walls inside the garden’s visitor center where voting booths were being erected. “Soon we can stop hearing about this.”

For months, Wisconsin residents — those on both sides of the debate — have complained that this fight has changed what was once mostly a gentle, civil political climate and turned friends and neighbors against one another.

“I’m looking forward to this being over,” said Adam Crandall, 45, who declined to say who he was backing, but stressed the need for Wisconsin to balance its budget and attract new businesses. “Frankly, I’m disappointed for the state of Wisconsin that we had to go through this, but it’s time to move forward.”

This has been a campaign in dizzying, fast-forward mode. Under state rules about the timetable of recall elections, Mr. Barrett became the Democratic nominee only last month, after winning a contested primary.

More than $60 million has been spent in this battle, much of it by outside groups — significantly more than has ever been spent on a governor’s race here and so much that, by Monday, local television stations were buried in political ads during breaks for every show. Mr. Walker’s campaign has raised some $30 million, much of it from out of state.

Continued