DANIEL BICE

Bice: U.S. Senate candidate Sarah Godlewski didn't vote in 2016 election despite working on Hillary Clinton campaign

Daniel Bice
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

It takes some audacity for someone with a spotty voting record to ask you to cast a ballot for them.   

But that's what is going on in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate.

State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski — one of at least a half-dozen Dems vying for GOP Sen. Ron Johnson's seat — was hired in August 2016 as a deputy political director for Hillary Clinton's Wisconsin campaign. In that post, she traveled the state trying to round up support among women. 

"My birthday is the day after the election on Nov. 9," Godlewski wrote in a Facebook post on Nov. 4, 2016. "I don't want presents or even cards.…All I want is for us to elect Hillary Clinton," adding links for people to register, donate or volunteer for the Democratic presidential nominee.

Godlewski, however, didn't take her own advice. She never registered or voted in the crucial 2016 general election, a contest in which Donald Trump won the state by 11,000 votes and Johnson was elected to a second term. 

Jeremy Busch, a spokesman for Godlewski's campaign, said she worked day and night to help defeat Trump in Wisconsin but never registered to vote because she wasn't sure she met the residency requirements.

"As (former Gov.) Scott Walker was ramping up his voter suppression efforts, she didn't want to harm the campaign and didn't vote out of an abundance of caution," Busch said. "It's one of her big regrets and if she could do it all over again, she would have absolutely voted."

Sarah Godlewski, then deputy political director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign in Wisconsin, wrote on Facebook, "My birthday is the day after the election on Nov. 9," Godlewski wrote in a Facebook post on Nov. 4, 2016. "I don't want presents or even cards.…All I want is for us to elect Hillary Clinton." Records show Godlewski did not vote in Wisconsin in that election.

To vote, she had to live in the state for at least 10 consecutive days before the election. Godlewski came to Wisconsin more than two months before the 2016 election. 

Battino, Olikara also have spotty voting records

But she's not the only one with a questionable voting record. 

Wausau radiologist Gillian Battino has cast a ballot in only 10 of the past 23 elections in her district over the past decade.

Battino, 51, said she hasn't voted more regularly because of family and work commitments over that time, though she noted she has voted more regularly since Trump's election.

"When President Trump became president, my son who's from Ethiopia asked me if he was going to have to go back to Ethiopia. So, yes, I would say our entire family was deeply affected by that surprise."

More surprising, political activist Steven Olikara, the founder and former chief executive of the Millennial Action Project, officially voted in only a dozen of the past 29 elections in Wisconsin since 2011. Olikara, 31, has formed an exploratory committee to run in next year's U.S. Senate race.

In a statement, Olikara contended that he had requested and submitted an absentee ballot in several of the races in which he is not listed in state records as having voted. He is not listed as having voted in the 2016 presidential primary, though he says he mailed in a ballot on time.

Not exactly a stellar endorsement of absentee voting if true.

More:Meet the 5 Democrats already running for Ron Johnson's seat in Wisconsin's 2022 Senate race

The other Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate seat have strong voting records over the past decade or since they moved to the state, having voted in more than 75% of the elections for which they were eligible, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel review of state records.

The other Democrats already in the race include state Sen. Chris Larson, Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson. Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes is expected to announce in the coming weeks. Johnson has yet to say if he'll run for a third term.

Godlewski, 39, has voted in a dozen Wisconsin elections since registering in Wisconsin in early 2018. She cast a ballot in both the primary and general elections in which she ran for state treasurer in 2018, her first elective office. 

She also voted in three of five elections while living in Washington, D.C., between 2010 and 2012 and in four consecutive Colorado elections as a Denver resident from 2013 to 2016. Her campaign said she caucused for Clinton in Colorado in March 2016. 

Godlewski and her husband, Max Duckworth, had a house in Chevy Chase, Maryland, when she left her job with Arapahoe County, Colorado, in early 2016. Records show Duckworth was registered and voted in Maryland in 2016. Godlewski never voted in Maryland. 

She took a job as the women's outreach director for Clinton's campaign in August 2016 and got an apartment in Madison. Federal records show she was paid $8,337 for four months of work from the Wisconsin Democratic Party's federal account. 

In October 2016, Godlewski represented the Clinton campaign on an Eau Claire panel exploring the role of women in politics. She urged the audience to vote for Clinton as part of a larger push for greater female representation.

“We need our voices to be heard,” Godlewski said. “We have a lot more glass ceilings to shatter.”

She also raised the issue of registering in an Oct. 22, 2016, Facebook post. Along with a picture of her dog, Tanner Duckworthski, and her laptop, Godlewski said her pooch was "helping me make my plan to vote for Hillary! Don't know where or when you can vote …Get the details here: https:hillaryclinton.com/makeaplan/" 

Sarah Godlewski raised the issue of registering to vote in an Oct. 22, 2016, Facebook post. Along with a picture of her dog, Tanner Duckworthski, and her laptop, Godlewski said her pooch was "helping me make my plan to vote for Hillary! Don't know where or when you can vote …Get the details here: https:hillaryclinton.com/makeaplan/"

Republicans made sweeping changes in state election laws in 2011, including a provision requiring voters to live at their voting address for 28 consecutive days before an election, up from the previous 10-day residency requirement. But a federal judge struck down the change in August 2016, putting the 10-day requirement back in place in Wisconsin. Last year, a federal appeals court restored the 28-day residency requirement.

Critics said they cannot believe Godlewski didn't know the rules when she took a pass on registering to vote in 2016. 

“It’s very disappointing and surprising to hear that Sarah Godlewski failed to vote in the 2016 presidential election, when Trump won Wisconsin by less than 1% while Ron Johnson was re-elected," said Irene Lin, Nelson's campaign manager. 

Anna Kelly, spokeswoman for the state Republican Party, was even tougher, saying Godlewski's mistakes prove she "isn't ready for prime time."

"Sarah Godlewski better hope ‘Tanner Duckworthski' knows a little something about making a candidate credible because it’s clear she and her campaign can’t pull it off," Kelly said. "At this point, how can she possibly be taken seriously?"

Battino readily acknowledged that she could have voted more regularly. But she noted that she has six children and that she and her husband are both doctors working long hours. 

Back in 2000, she recalled that she was doing a residency in Cincinnati but had no idea the outcome of the presidential contest between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore the day after the election. She eventually took a friend aside who told her that no winner had been declared. 

"I do regret not having been a voting member of society," Battino said. "But that's not to say that I wasn't advocating for what I believed was right. I've always done that very actively."

As for Olikara, he has been an advocate for changing the partisan politics in favor of greater political cooperation since he was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

Between 2017 and 2020, Olikara voted in Wisconsin using his parents' Brookfield address even while renting an apartment in Washington, D.C., as he was running his nonprofit there. He said he regularly visited Wisconsin during this period, usually coming home every month to see family, serve on local boards and conduct programming. 

State law permits voters to maintain their residence in Wisconsin while living elsewhere if it's their "intent to return" to the state. 

Olikara disputed the state records showing that he had voted less than half the time during the past decade. He forwarded emails showing that he had requested absentee ballots from election officials in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential primaries. He returned the ballots on time in both cases, he said. 

Still, Olikara acknowledged that he could have voted more regularly. 

"I have voted in nearly every major federal and state election in Wisconsin since I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 as a student at UW-Madison," he wrote. "I should have voted in more elections."

Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 313-6684 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.