Absentee Ballots Mailed to Wisconsin Clerks Down 30% Compared to 2022
Officials cite loss of faith in U.S. Postal Service. In-person absentee voting expected to rise.
An absentee ballot. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Wisconsin election officials say a loss of trust in the U.S. Postal service is likely behind a roughly 30 percent decline in the number of absentee ballots received three weeks ahead of the November election.
As of Tuesday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission reported clerks have gotten around 128,000 absentee ballots. Three weeks out from the 2022 election, clerks reported getting nearly 184,000 ballots by mail.
During a Tuesday press conference in Madison, Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe was joined by Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell and acting Madison Clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde. McDonell was asked why he thinks the number of people voting by mail is down.
“The main reason is there’s a lack of confidence in the Postal Service processing those ballots and getting them to the clerks, and we saw that in August and in April, where we were seeing far more ballots arrive afterwards,” McDonell said.
What wasn’t discussed during the press conference was President Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to have his administration decide who gets to vote by mail and who doesn’t.
On March 31, Trump issued an executive order directing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create lists of people deemed eligible to vote. Trump also directed the U.S. Postal Service to create a new rule barring absentee ballots from being processed and delivered if a voter’s name isn’t on the lists. After states sued to stop the postal service rule, Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. Justices rejected his request Sept. 15.
Bernarde said the number of absentee ballots the Madison clerk’s office has received as of Tuesday is down from around 31,700 in 2022 to around 9,000 this year. That’s a roughly 70 percent drop.
“We are prepared for an increase of in-person absentee voters for this election, due to the decrease in by-mail absentee ballots,” said Bernarde. “In November of 2022, we had 23,000 in-person absentee voters, and so we expect that to be higher this election, and we are preparing for that by extending our in-person absentee voting hours and increasing our staffing.”
In-person absentee voting kicks off Tuesday, Oct. 20.
McDonell said the decrease in voting by mail is a national trend, and his office is getting more calls about in-person absentee voting. He and Wolfe urged voters to get their absentee ballots in the mail by Tuesday to ensure they arrive at their local clerk’s office before 8 p.m. on Nov. 3.
Wisconsin judge: Clerks can’t reject ballots arriving late because of staff errors
Earlier on Tuesday, Dane County Judge Everett Mitchell ruled absentee ballots cannot be rejected by clerks if staff errors caused them to show up late to the proper polling places.
The decision stems from a lawsuit over 23 ballots in Madison that went uncounted during the April Wisconsin Supreme Court election. The liberal firm Law Forward argued the voters did nothing wrong and the Wisconsin Elections Commission wrongly ordered that their ballots not be counted.
Mitchell said the commission’s argument that the ballots were rejected to serve the state’s interests of having an orderly and final election with time to resolve challenges are important.
“But none of them is served by discarding ballots that were sealed in the clerk’s custody before the election, delivered within thirty-one minutes of the polls closing, counted on Election Night, and included in both the municipal and county canvasses,” said Mitchell.
Absentee ballots mailed to Wisconsin clerks down roughly 30 percent compared to 2022 was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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