MILWAUKEE— At the Tippecanoe Branch Library on Milwaukee’s South Side, voters were lined up outside on Tuesday. They were there before the doors even opened for early voting at 7 a.m. 

Arva Parker was among them. She arrived around 6 a.m. to make sure she could be at the head of the line to cast a ballot. 

“I have plenty of family members that have been negatively impacted by this coronavirus so I wanted to make sure my vote was counted,” says Parker, who ended up being the first person at the library to cast a ballot. 

 Parker and other voters Spectrum News 1 spoke with cited voting security as one of the primary reasons they chose to vote early in person. Parker and another voter, Stanford Kraft, both agreed they had concerns about the security of mailing in a ballot, but also did not wish to vote on November 3. 

“I guess you just want to make sure your ballot is counted. I am not real excited about the mail-in ballot. I guess this way we did it the way we feel was the best way to do it," says Kraft.

In the City of Milwaukee, eight libraries are serving as early voting sites. 

Eileen Force Cahill with the Milwaukee Public Library says the library sites have proved to be good fits for the public to come and vote early. She says the public often has a lot of trust in librarians and libraries; plus, getting to vote there can help reassure voters that their ballots will be safe. 

Early voting at library locations in the city did encounter at least one issue. Force Cahill says the start of early voting at the Mitchell Street Branch Library was delayed about 45 minutes on Tuesday morning due to WiFi in the building not working properly. She says the issue has been resolved and that voting has returned to normal. ​