Bob Koch
A city of Madison absentee ballot drop box at the north side fire station.
In a July 8 ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court banned the use of drop boxes in future elections.
Absentee voting has come under attack in recent years from those who were not happy with the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Large numbers of voters chose to vote absentee in 2020 because the primary and general election occurred during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Election deniers, however, have pounced on absentee voting as the reason for former President Donald Trump’s defeat, claiming rampant fraud, especially through the use of ballot drop boxes, which were installed in cities around the state so that voters did not have to risk infection by voting at the polls.
But absentee voting, supported by both parties, was on the rise in Wisconsin before 2020. In August 2018, more than 98,568 absentee ballots were cast statewide by primary Election Day. The robust voter turnout was most likely due to the high-profile race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate (won by Leah Vukmir) and the Democratic nomination for governor (won by Tony Evers). As Don Behm reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that was a 13.5 percent hike from the final absentee ballot tally in the 2016 partisan primary (86,862) and also higher than the primary numbers for 2014 (65,525 absentee ballots) and 2012 (84,830) in 2012.
The increase in popularity, former Elections Commission spokesman Reid Magney told Behm, coincided with candidates and special interest groups encouraging more people to vote early.
In Madison, about 3,000 absentee ballots were returned as of a week before the Aug. 11, 2018, midterm primary, an increase from the 2,500 returned in 2016. Days in advance of this year’s Aug. 9, 2022, Madison Deputy Clerk Jim Verbick tells Isthmus the City Clerk’s Office has received over 28,000 absentee ballots, a jump from previous years. Ballots can still be delivered to polling stations on Election Day; Certified Municipal Clerk Thomas Lund expects perhaps around 500 more will be collected. Lund says that primaries can be unpredictable when it comes to public interest.
This year, the high interest primary among Democrats was the race for the U.S. Senate, and for Republicans, the race for governor is on the ballot.
But within two weeks of the primary three of the top Democratic candidates for Senate — Alex Lasry, Sarah Godlewski and Tom Nelson — made a surprising exit from the race. Absentee voters had the opportunity to “spoil” their ballot if they wanted to change their vote, but Verbick says the City Clerk’s Office is not tracking spoiled votes.
Prior to the absentee ballot deadline on Aug. 7, a voter could request to spoil their ballot by requesting a new absentee ballot via mail, email, or in person. In years past, Lund says that voters could automatically spoil a previously cast ballot by voting in-person using a new ballot at the polls, but that process has since been made illegal.
After the Wisconsin Supreme Court banned the use of drop boxes in future elections in a 4-3 ruling on July 8, the 14 ballot drop boxes around the city of Madison were shuttered, leaving voters the choice of either mailing or dropping off absentee ballots in person. While the drop boxes were a convenient way to ensure safe delivery of a ballot, Lund says he doesn’t expect that their absence will have any effect on turnout for the Aug. 9 primary election.
Madison voters going to the polls on Tuesday might very well be going to a different polling location as sites have changed significantly since the last election.
Madison now has 99 locations, about 10 more than were open for the 2020 primary election, says Lund. Polling sites are entirely dependent upon the willingness of the locations that open their doors, and COVID-19 had a major impact on the availability of sites.
The 2022 redistricting also influenced wards’ polling locations, especially with the last-minute redistricting ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April. The city and county recently adopted those new district lines earlier this year during the decennial redistricting process. Lund also notes that living on a traditional border between two different wards means frequent polling site changes as well.
If you are unsure where to vote, Lund points to one source: “It’s kind of a broken record at this point, but go to myvote.wi.gov,” says Lund, “That is the state holding house of all of the information, and if any place has the most updated information, it’s going to be there.”