UNDATED (WTAQ) – The Wisconsin Elections Commission reports that more than a half-million people have cast early absentee ballots in the 2016 election.
During his campaign appearance in Eau Claire on Tuesday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump urged those early voters who chose his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, over him to reconsider. In Wisconsin, you can “spoil” your ballot up to three times by Friday.
So have clerks across northeast Wisconsin seen voters seeking a legal “do-over”? Not too much.
“One person by mail asked that I mail out another ballot because they changed their mind,” says Annette DuPrey, Deputy Clerk in the Village of Howard.
DuPrey says as of mid-day Wednesday, 1,713 in-person, absentee ballots have been cast. Did DuPrey mind if Trump touted the idea of recasting an already filled out, sealed and delivered ballot?
“I don’t have a problem with it,” DuPrey says. “The state of Wisconsin allows you 3 times, so even in a primary, you tell a person they have to vote with the same party and you can’t jump around. And they don’t believe you, so they mark all over different parties and they get their ballot, go put it in the machine, it kicks out, they get another ballot. They still screw it up, they get one more try and then they’re done. So they get three tries, so it doesn’t matter to me. That’s the law and that’s the way it is.”
That 1,713 number is about what their office expected, DuPrey adds. The same can be said for the city of Appleton, which has had 6,350 absentee ballots cast through mid-day Wednesday.
“For the last presidential election in 2012, there was 6,565 total,” says Appleton City Clerk Kami Lynch. “We still have a few days left and I thought we would exceed probably by about 1,000 that number.”
But the city of De Pere is a different animal. According to the clerk’s office, as of end of the day Tuesday, 4,047 absentee ballots had been cast.
“Honestly I thought it was a little bit lower,” De Pere City Clerk-Treasurer Shana Ledvina says about her expectations for voters getting it done early. “Last presidential election, we had a total of about 5,500 absentee ballots for both in-person and by mail. I anticipated having more people voting absentee this election than last election, so I’m kind of having a hard-time figuring that out.”
Ledvina explains that part of the reason she believed De Pere would get more in-person, early absentee voters was the expansion of time to do so. They went with six weeks of availability, rather than just two.
“And I just thought with those four weeks that we would just see an overall increase in absentee voting just because we had it open for so much longer,” says Ledvina. “But that just hasn’t been the case.”
ELECTION DAY EXPECTATIONS
The state of Wisconsin has not released their projection of voter turnout coming up on Tuesday. But no matter what that number is, Lynch says the city of Appleton always comes in above the bar.
“I would say somewhere around 90 percent, that’s based off the last one, that probably is a safe estimate,” says Lynch.
In Howard, about 85 percent of voters are believed to be ready to line up at the polls in the village.
“We’re guessing up to 7,000 voters,” DuPrey says. “With our growth, that’s right on.”
St. Norbert College, which is in De Pere, makes estimating turnout on Election Day a nightmare for the clerk’s office.
“A lot of those college students stay on the books for four years, even though they’ve moved away and are living out of state, sometimes their registration doesn’t get pulled until they re-registered somewhere else,” explains Ledvina. “So I always feel like our turnout is always skewed because of that.”
Ledvina did say that 75 to 80 percent turnout is a reasonable guess, although just to be on the safe side she ordered enough ballots for 100 percent turnout. That’s because, in this election, you just never know.
