Are you a Wisconsinite who would like to vote in the presidential primary and the state Supreme Court race? You can ask to have an absentee ballot mailed to you until Thursday, April 2 at 5 p.m.
To request your ballot, visit MyVote.Wi.Gov. Many municipalities have made absentee voting by appointment available, too. Contact your city or village clerk for more information.
If you would like to request your absentee ballot online, you must be registered first; online registration has been extended past an old deadline and is still available. Registration is available at MyVote.Wi.Gov.
On the ballot, you’ll find President Donald Trump running against an unrestricted delegate for the Republican nomination. Democrats are running against one another for their party’s nomination, including former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, and several others who have already dropped out. Also, there’s a race for Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, with its ten-year term.
Fox Point Village Manager Scott Botcher said he and other officials are encouraging absentee voting, because of the coronavirus situation. As of the end of the day Tuesday, total turnout in Fox Point was about 55 percent, just based on absentee voting. That’s unusually high, Botcher said.
Fox Point, like other municipalities, has plans to carefully clean voting machines and take various precautions for April 7. That’s voting day, which is still on. “Every indication we get from the state is that it will happen, and we have no indication it will not happen. It appears it will be a regular Tuesday voting day,” Botcher said.
Except that all the absentee voting has increased the paperwork. And with many voting day volunteers (many are elderly) bowing out of assisting this time around, municipal clerks around the state are overwhelmed, Botcher said.
“I think that every clerk in the state deserves a great deal of praise because they are working it,” he said. “I’ve never seen it like this in 32 years.”