Mail-in voting getting underway

Clerks expecting heavy absentee voting this election season
By: 
Tim Ryan
Reporter

A Wisconsin Supreme Court decision Monday cleared the way for the first round of absentee ballots for the Nov. 3 electtion to go out as planned Thursday to Wisconsin voters who had already requested them.

Clerks statewide were notified Sept. 11 that the mailing of ballots was in limbo while the state court considered a lawsuit seeking to get the Green Party onto the ballot previously approved by the Wisconsin Election Commission.

Noting that the 2020 election season had already essentially begun, the court ruled, “it is too late to grant petitioners any form of relief that would be feasible and that would not cause confusion and undue damage to both the Wisconsin electors who want to vote and the other candidates in all of the various races on the general election ballot.”

Voters for weeks have been inundated with campaign fliers and third-party absentee ballot request forms, including one from the Wisconsin Election Commission.

Municipal clerks have already started getting absentee ballot requests and they expect those requests to keep coming in through October with a much higher-than-normal interest this year in mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The last day we can mail out an absentee ballot is Oct. 29,” Shawano City Clerk Lesley Nemetz said. “All ballots need to be back at City Hall by 8 p.m. on election day, Nov. 3.”

For those concerned their ballots might not get back in time, there is the drop box located outside City Hall.

“People can mail their ballots back, put them in the drop box or bring them in to City Hall,” Nemetz said. “We will check the drop box periodically throughout the day every day as well as on election day.”

Nemetz said many people might feel more comfortable either mailing in their ballots or doing in-person absentee voting ahead of election day.

In-person absentee voting runs from Oct. 20-30.

“People still have COVID concerns,” Nemetz said. “Our space isn’t overly excessive, so if you choose to come in on election day, you’re probably going to be standing in line for longer than you’d like to because we’re only going to allow so many people in the building at a time and it’s going to be cold.”

Shawano County Clerk Pam Schmidt said the county is prepared for the heavy influx of absentee voting.

“We believe we’re prepared,” she said. “We have about 8,000 absentee envelopes here because we supply them to all of the clerks, aside from the city and the Town of Wescott. They have so many, they just order their own.”

Though there has been some political rhetoric at the national level about the security of mail-in voting, voters in Shawano County should be confident their ballots will be secure and will be counted, Schmidt said.

“I think with any of the problems that they’ve been having, with them feeling they’re not secure or bins of them sitting in the post office or getting lost, I am highly confident that does not happen in our county,” she said.

“First of all, we’re quite a bit smaller and we’re in constant contact with our clerks and making sure that things are all set for them and they’re all fully competent,” Schmidt said.

“Not that clerks in other counties aren’t,” she said, “but we’re just a smaller county. I’m confident in the way elections are run and I don’t think that there’s any absentee ballots sitting in closets or anything like that.”

Nemetz said that once the ballots are sent out, everything within the system is tracked.

“If a ballot’s already been sent to an individual, we can’t send duplicate ballots,” she said. “When the ballots come back, there’s no markings on the envelopes that say how a person voted or what candidate they would have voted for. It’s just strictly their name and their address, so when it comes back on election day we know who voted. When the ballots come back, we keep them in a secure location.”

Nemetz said the system would also flag anyone who voted by mail and then tried voting a second time in person, as has been suggested by President Donald Trump as a way of checking the system.

“That will get caught,” Nemetz said.

“There are watermarks in our poll books that let the poll workers know if an individual has been mailed a ballot and their ballot has already been returned,” she said. “If a person’s ballot has already been returned to the polling location, they cannot vote on Election Day.”

Wittenberg Village Clerk Traci Matsche noted that voters should request and return their ballots early for any election, but especially for the upcoming presidential election.

She noted that of the 1,030 residents in the village, 783 are of voting age. In the August election, 449 were registered to vote. In Wittenberg for the last presidential election, the official record shows 64 people registered to vote on Election Day, and Matsche anticipates more for this election. A total of 504 registered but only 404 people voted.

Matsche noted that anyone who has concerns about COVID-19 but wants to come to the community center to vote should try to do so during the midday hours, as fewer people vote at that time.

The Wittenberg Post Office handles deliveries for the surrounding areas. Supervisor Jamie Kolpack said that if you bring in your ballot and have it hand-stamped at the customer service window, it will be delivered locally. All other mail gets sent to Green Bay for processing, Kolpack said.

The U.S. Postal Service is recommending voters request ballots at the earliest point allowable but no later than 15 days prior to the election date.

Oconto County Clerk Kim Pytleski urged voters who haven’t yet requested an absentee ballot to make their request as soon as possible.

Requests made too close to the deadline can be problematic, she said. Requests can be made at myvote.wi.gov or in writing to the municipal clerk.

ONLINE

More information about voting, including registering to vote, returning absentee ballots and local polling places can be found at myvote.wi.gov.

Miriam Nelson and Warren Bluhm contributed to this story.