Wisconsin Election Latest: Absentee Ballot Deadline Now Tuesday

MILWAUKEE, WI — Despite the coronavirus public health emergency, an executive order blocking it and a successful state Supreme Court challenge, Wisconsin is once again hosting the April 7 presidential primary and statewide general election as planned. A late ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has also set the absentee ballot deadline back to its original date: election day for submissions and postmarking.

Monday 6 p.m.: Absentee Deadline Overruled

Voters with absentee ballots will have to turn them in or have them postmarked by Tuesday to have them counted after a late ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court Monday night.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a consequential ruling for Wisconsin voters late Monday, overturning a lower court's ruling that extended Wisconsin's absentee ballot submissions by nearly a week.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge William M. Conley of the U.S. District Court - Western District of Wisconsin extended the deadline for absentee ballots to be received by election officials from 8 p.m. on election night to 4 p.m. on April 13. The move would have given poll workers more time to tally votes.

On Monday night, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Conley's ruling, voting along 5-4 lines to restore Wisconsin's former absentee ballot deadline. That means poll workers cannot accept absentee ballots that are postmarked after election day.

Monday 5 p.m.: Court Overrules Governor

Republican legislators filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court hours after the order was made public, arguing that Evers' order was unconstitutional. "We are immediately challenging this executive order in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court," Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a joint statement with state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald. “The clerks of this state should stand ready to proceed with the election. The governor’s executive order is clearly an unconstitutional overreach."

The court, whose political balance leans 5-2 in favor of conservative justices, ruled 4-2 that the April 7 election must go on. Justice Daniel Kelly, who is on the April ballot, recused himself from this case.

Monday 1 p.m. Governor Postpones Election

Less than 24 hours before in-person voting was set to begin, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order suspending in-person voting until June.

According to the executive order, he suspended Tuesday's in-person election vote until June 9, "unless the Legislature passes and the Governor approves a different date for in-person voting."
The order never made it that far.

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Weekend: Mayors Pressured Governor For Poll Closings

A growing number of mayors from across Wisconsin are urging Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm to make a last-minute change to the state's April 7 election over concerns about coronavirus exposure as thousands of voters potentially head to the polls.

"We believe it would be irresponsible and contrary to public health to conduct in-person voting throughout the state at the very time this disease is spreading rapidly," the group of mayors stated in the letter, which was sent to Palm on Sunday.

The letter calls for Palm to use her authority in the state's highest health office to close down the polls on election day, while mailing absentee ballots to every registered voter in the state.

"We implore you to implement all emergency measures necessary to control the spread of COVID-19, a communicable disease. Specifically, we need you to step up and stop the State of Wisconsin from putting hundreds of thousands of citizens at risk by requiring them to vote at the polls while this ugly pandemic spreads," the group of mayors wrote.

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Weekend: Governor Denied Last-Ditch Election Fix With Legislators

On Friday, Evers called on the Republican-led Wisconsin State Legislature to meet in a special session to take up changes to the upcoming spring election to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The special session was scheduled for 4 p.m., Saturday, April 4.

Republican leaders spent a matter of minutes on the session, gaveling it in and out without taking up any of the proposals made by the Democratic governor.

“Republicans in the Legislature are playing politics with public safety and ignoring the urgency of this public health crisis. It’s wrong. No one should have to choose between their health and their right to vote," Evers wrote following the aborted session.

Republican leaders fumed over being called into special session over the weekend. "If the governor had legitimate concerns, we could have come to a bipartisan solution weeks ago. This discussion would have happened long before today. The only bipartisan discussion we’ve had was to ensure the election would continue safely and to maximize the opportunity to vote absentee," Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) wrote, citing the governor's repeated calls to continue the election, despite a critical shortage of poll workers and the ongoing public health risk.

Last Week: Federal Judge Says Election Results Will Be Delayed

While the April 7 election is slated to go on as planned for the moment, a federal judge ruled on Friday that any results from the election won't be reported publicly until extended absentee ballot counting is complete on April 13.

That means, when voters go to the polls on April 7, they won't know the results until nearly a week later. Whoever wins the April 7 presidential primary, and whoever wins a myriad of state-level elections and innumerable local ones won't know until April 13 whether they've won or lost.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge William M. Conley of the U.S. District Court - Western District of Wisconsin refused to postpone the election, saying he did not see evidence that "hundreds of thousands" of voters would have their civil rights violated amid the coronavirus public health emergency.

In the same ruling, Conley extended the deadline for absentee ballots to be received by election officials from 8 p.m. on election night to 4 p.m. on April 13. The move gives poll workers more time to tally votes.

According to a WISN 12 report, Conley's ruling could have created a situation where local clerks started reporting partial results from the absentee ballots they counted in addition to the in-person voters on election day. The total results wouldn't be known until all ballots had been counted by April 13.

Last Week: National Guard To Be Called Out On Election Day

Last week, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said he's calling out the National Guard to staff polling places across the state after election officials said nearly 60 percent of Wisconsin municipalities have an urgent shortage of poll workers.

Many jurisdictions have "dramatically consolidated polling places," state officials said. According to the Wisconsin Election Commission, there are 111 communities that do not have the ability to staff even one polling place on April 7. Wisconsin local election officials say they're about 7,000 poll workers short for election day.

According to a JSOnline report, officials such as Commissioner Mark Thomsen are concerned that such a shortage means, coupled with slower mail service, that absentee ballots will either take much longer to count, or won't be counted at all.

"Jurisdictions described as 'Critical' and 'Serious' are spread across the state with no geographic trends," administrator Megan Wolfe of the Wisconsin Election Commission said in a memo this week. "Nearly every county in Wisconsin has at least one municipality concerned about their ability to open a polling place on April 7."

Last Week: Pain At The Polls — By The Numbers

All data has been compiled by the Wisconsin Election Commission. This data was compiled when officials surveyed local municipalities about their capabilities on election day, April 7.

Critical: jurisdictions cannot staff even one polling place.
671 Poll Worker Shortage
111 Number of Jurisdictions

Serious: jurisdiction is unable to staff all desired polling places.
2,713 Poll Worker Shortage
126 Number of Jurisdictions

Concerning: jurisdiction has fewer staff than needed for efficient operations.
3,469 Poll Worker Shortage
542 Number of Jurisdictions

Stable: jurisdiction has enough poll workers to function efficiently.
86 Poll Worker Shortage
541 Number of Jurisdictions

Did not report a status.
n/a Poll Worker Shortage
530 Number of Jurisdictions