National Vote Early Day: What To Know In Wauwatosa

WAUWATOSA, WI— All but six states in the U.S., plus Washington, D.C., offer early voting, either in person or by mail. By Saturday, all but three of those states will have opened their polling places to the public.

Saturday is national Vote Early Day, a movement created by a coalition of nonprofits, businesses, election administrators and others to ensure every American has the chance to vote on or before Election Day.

Early voting, both in person and by mail, gives voters the chance to cast a ballot while avoiding crowded polling places and risking contracting the COVID-19 virus, according to the national Vote Early Day campaign.

Early voting in Wisconsin started Oct. 20 and ends on Nov. 1.

When polls are open varies by municipality and polling place. You can find the hours for polling places in Wauwatosa here: Wauwatosa 2020 Election Guide.

Some states allow residents to cast mail-in ballots, which can be returned by mail, in a ballot drop box or to a voting place or election office. Here’s where to find drop boxes in Wauwatosa.

In Wauwatosa, Absentee ballots may be returned:

If you request that an absentee ballot be sent to you, please include a photo copy of proper photo ID along with your absentee ballot application. The absentee ballot envelope will contain instructions for the ballot's return, as well as a return, postage-paid envelope.
Make sure you sign your absentee ballot envelope; have a witness sign the envelope and include his/her address.

The last day to cast an in-person absentee ballot at the Clerk's office is 5 p.m. on the Friday before each election, unless hours are extended. When you cast an in-person absentee ballot at the Clerk's office, you will seal your voted ballot in a carrier envelope. The envelopes will be stored in the Clerk's vault and will be counted at central count processing at City Hall on Election Day.

• Ballots must be returned by Election Day in order to be counted.
• Via mail
• In person at the City Clerk's Office if you're participating in early absentee voting
• Ballot boxes (Drive up to City Hall or the Muellner Building in Hart Park and drop off your ballot).

The U.S. Postal Service recommends absentee ballots be mailed one week before Election Day to arrive in time.

If you still have your ballot on Election Day, it may be returned in person to your polling location by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3rd.

Rules and regulations around voting vary by state. Here’s what voters in Wisconsin should know before heading to the polls: Wisconsin Election Commission.

A Pew Research Center study found that more than half of voters in the 2020 presidential primary elections voted by mail in the 37 states studied, roughly double the number of voters who opted to use mail-in ballots in the 2018 and 2016 general elections.

The rise in mail-in voting parallels an overall increase in voter turnout in 2020. Thirteen days before the general election, voters had already vastly exceeded previous years’ turnout rates with more than 40 million Americans having already cast a ballot.

This increase could be attributed in part to a handful of states that opted to automatically mail ballots to every registered voter and another dozen states that mailed absentee ballot applications to everyone registered.

In 19 states studied by the U.S. Elections Project, significantly more registered Democrats had voted than registered Republicans. As of Oct. 21, 52 percent of early voters who have cast a ballot so far are registered Democrats while 26.1 percent are registered Republicans.

Another 22 percent of voters had either no party affiliation or were registered with a minor party.