Absentee ballots, dropbox rules in Wisconsin clarified pre-election day
(The Center Square) – With Wisconsin’s partisan primary election Tuesday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission discussed in a media call Monday what voters should know before filling out their ballots.
All state polling places open Tuesday at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Wisconsin voters can cast their ballot in person or absentee. Absentee ballots must be delivered to the municipality counting facility, whether in person or via mail, before the polls close. In person voters must have joined the line at their polling place by 8 p.m. in order to vote.
“The bottom line is that your ballots do have to be to the polls by 8 p.m. on election day in order to be counted,” WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe said.
Ballot dropbox availability will depend on which municipalities decide to utilize them. Voters can check what district they are in because the state district maps have changed, which candidates are on their ballot, and whether their municipality is utilizing dropboxes on myvote.wi.gov
“We don’t know exactly what turnout will be for tomorrow’s partisan primary,” Wolfe said. “To give you a couple of examples, in 2022 the partisan primary had about 27% of eligible voters that participated.”
Regarding the safety of polling places, Wolfe said officials do not expect any conduct issues to arise, but local election officials are trained to deal with such cases if they do occur.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has provided materials explaining the two constitutional amendments on the primary ballot, which each polling place will display for voters.
Wisconsin officials do not expect any challenges to election results but are prepared for recounts if necessary.
“We certainly don’t expect or anticipate that there’s going to be any unusual or frivolous challenges to the process,” Wolfe said. “But if somebody does attempt to make unlawful challenges, or challenges that don’t have any merit or personal knowledge associated with it, the clerks and the chief inspectors are also trained on how to handle those.”
As of Monday morning, municipal clerks across the state have received 288,021 absentee ballots total, according to WEC data.
