WISCONSIN BLUE BOOK


may prescribe not more than 30 days, may vote. The legislature, by
statute, has reduced the residence requirement for the election dis-
trict to 10 days. At the time that the Wisconsin Constitution was
written, voting was confined to men. Thus it was necessary by sec-
tion 6.015 of the statutes for the legislature to extend the privilege
of voting to women in the early 1920's after the 19th amendment to
the U.S. Constitution had been adopted providing that the privilege
of suffrage shall not be denied because of sex.
   The Constitution provides that the legislature may by law extend
the privilege of voting to persons not included in the Constitution,
but such laws must be approved by a referendum vote of the people
before they become effective. Thus in 1953 the Wisconsin legisla-
ture provided that persons who had not resided in Wisconsin for one
year could vote for presidential electors, and this proposal was
approved by the voters.


                         Who May Not Vote

   The Constitution and the statutes expressly exclude from the
privilege of voting persons under guardianship, persons not in their
right minds, persons convicted of a felony or treason unless restored
to civil rights, persons who bet on an election and persons who are
convicted of bribery unless restored to civil rights. Persons desiring
to vote must also comply with certain other mechanical processes in
order to be eligible to vote. These will be discussed in other para-
graphs.

                       Who Really Does Vote

   Many lament the fact that so few people actually vote. These
people venture the opinion that if the backsliders were prohibited
from voting, they would scream to high heaven, but because the
privilege is there, they do not exercise it. There are all sorts of sta-
tistics to show that often less than half the eligible voters take the
trouble to vote. For example, in an advisory referendum held in
April 1951 on 4-year terms for constitutional officers 540,000 people
voted while in November 1952 on a referendum on reapportionment
1,440,000 people voted. In 1952, 1,614,721 people voted for Gover-
nor but in 1954 only 1,158,627 voted. While it must be remembered
that all residents cannot vote, some indication of the proportion of
people who vote may be obtained from     the following statistics:
                                        Total Vote         % of
       Year          Population        for Governor    Population Voting
       1920           2,632,067           481,828          18.31
       1930           2,939,006           606,401          20.6
       1940           3,137,587         1,373,597          43.71
       1950           3,434,575         1,138,087          33.4


1Presidential election year.


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