Absentee
Wisconsin’s election is bound to be complicated no matter what this year. U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled Monday that absentee ballots can be counted in Wisconsin if they are postmarked by Election Day and received by clerks by Nov. 9 — meaning Wisconsin may well have more of an election than an election Ordinarily, ballots must be back in the hands of clerks by the time polls close on Election Day. Conley’s decision is likely to be appealed.
But whether or not Conley’s decision stands, it makes sense to let clerks start counting early. The vast majority of ballots are likely to be received by Election Day, and it would be in the best interest of our democracy to have the most complete results possible on election night, which is what people have come to expect.
With record absentee voting expected this fall, now is the time to act.
During the April presidential primary, nearly 75% of votes were cast absentee — more than 60% of them by mail. Typically, a large majority of Wisconsin voters cast their ballots at the polls.
If the April pattern holds for the Nov. 3 election, more than 1.8 million absentee ballots might be requested, according to a May report by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. That could put enormous strain on clerks around the state.
Linda Golembiewski worked placing ballots in envelopes to be mailed out at the city clerk's office in Wauwatosa. Volunteers had to fold and sort ballots by hand before stuffing envelopes to mail them out.
Adding to the concern is a partisan divide in how people expect to vote. In a Marquette University Law School Poll in August, 67% of Republicans said they planned to vote in person on Election Day compared with only 27% of Democrats. Fifty-five percent of Democrats planned to vote by mail.
Wisconsin’s clerks have pushed for a change in state law that would allow them to open and place ballots into tabulator machines as they arrive in the mail. The tally would not be counted or disclosed until Election Day. Wisconsin law now requires them to wait until Election Day to begin counting.
Many states allow some form of early counting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Colorado, for example, allows counting to begin 15 days before Election Day, according to the NCSL. North Carolina allows counting to begin two weeks early. States don’t release results until Election Day and typically levy harsh penalties on anyone who tries to leak the tally.
Wisconsin legislators have debated the issue but haven’t acted. The Assembly approved a bill last year that would have allowed some in-person votes cast early to be counted sooner, but that bill died when the Senate failed to act on it. A Senate committee heard testimony earlier this year on a bill that would have allowed clerks to count absentee ballots early.
Long delays in counting ballots can fuel partisan emotions, give the combatants an excuse to challenge the results, and cause voters to question them.
Wisconsin had a taste of this during the 2018 governor’s race when Milwaukee election officials didn’t tally a large batch of absentee ballots until late at night. Those results — heavily favoring Tony Evers over incumbent Gov. Scott Walker — helped give Evers a comfortable lead.
Walker groused in his concession announcement that there are “questions about how the city of Milwaukee executed its election night operations” even though observers from both political parties kept an eye on the count. Walker accepted the results.
We need certainty and confidence in the results — especially since Wisconsin’s electoral votes may decide who is elected president.
No matter who wins, the most important thing is that we trust our elections and democratic processes. That’s why we need to give clerks of both parties what they are asking for. They run our elections; let’s listen to them. Allow them to count ballots early.