GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A presidential race and the coronavirus pandemic will both impact what voting will look like on Tuesday.
The election will be the third statewide since the pandemic began. And not only will turnout be higher than in April or August’s elections, but Wisconsin’s virus spread is the highest it’s ever been
Long lines in some Wisconsin cities were the big news from April’s election. The City of Green Bay consolidated the usual 31 polling places to two, citing shortages of poll workers. For the August primary, the city was able to open 17 polling places, with help from the Wisconsin National Guard. The city is planning to have 16 open on Tuesday.
Long lines and uncertainty about polling places have also led many voters to request absentee ballots or vote early in person. Wisconsin mayors, including Eric Genrich of Green Bay, have urged people to vote early. Many cities have also set up ballot drop boxes amid reports of postal delivery delays. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to extend the deadline for ballots to be received, so ballots must arrive in clerks’ offices no later that Tuesday in order to be counted. Ballots that arrive after Tuesday, even if they are postmarked before Tuesday, will not be counted.
The deadlines for requesting absentee ballots have passed, and Sunday was the last possible day municipalities could offer early in-person voting. As of Friday, WEC said more than 1.7 million absentee ballots had been returned and more than 542,000 people had voted early in person.
While the deadline for registering before the election has passed, voters in Wisconsin can register at the polls on election day. Learn more about registering at the polls here.
Voters heading to the polls on Tuesday could encounter long lines. Social distancing requirements will extend the space taken up by those lines. Those who are in line as of 8 p.m., when the polls close, will be allowed to vote. Voters will likely encounter plexiglass dividers and hand sanitizing stations. Voters are asked to wear face coverings and the Wisconsin Elections Commission recommends voters bring their own blue or black pens. Those who feel sick, have had exposure to COVID-19, are immunocompromised or disabled are urged to consider curbside voting. More information on voting during the pandemic is available on WEC’s website.
If you’re unsure of where to vote, you can find instructions here. If you have a problem while voting or want to report an issue, learn more here.
With the potential of long lines and the number of absentee ballots cast, it may take local clerks longer to report results. In most cases, clerks are not allowed to begin feeding ballots into machines for counting until the polls open at 7 a.m., so they will have to input absentee ballots while also facilitating in-person voting.
A factor that could slow ballot counting in Outagamie and Calumet counties is a printing error that prevents machines from reading some absentee ballots. The counties asked the state Supreme Court to issue a legal directive on how to count the ballots, but the high court declined. The county clerks have proposed copying each ballot by hand onto a machine-readable ballot. The WEC suggested filling in the printing error with a pen, but it is unclear whether that solution would be legal.
While Wisconsin’s results may be delayed, they should still be reported on election night. That won’t be the case in every state, however — and in the case of a close election, it’s possible a winner may not be known for days, or even weeks, afterward.
Live election night coverage on WTAQ begins at 8:00 p.m. Tuesday night.
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