WASHINGTON — Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle encouraging voters to cast their ballot early in Wisconsin.
“Voting in person early is your homework assignment,” Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, said this week at a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
“Do not wait,” said Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, in a post on X.
And it’s worked: the state has seen a rush of voters to the polls.
“Wisconsin is such a purple state that we never know which way it's going to go,” said Lisa Tollefson, the Rock County Clerk. “And I think they definitely feel like their vote will make a difference.”
Tollefson said the voters she’s talked to want to get voting out of the way so they’re not in a long line on election day.
And, Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, said in a post on X that now is a good time to cast a ballot because the weather is nice.
“You never know when a snowstorm is going to come in November in Wisconsin,” he said.
“Early voting locks people in,” explained Geoff Peterson, chair of the political science department at UW-Eau Claire. “It means they can't change their vote in case something really horrible happens, but it also means the weather is not going to screw up their vote when all is said and done.”
Peterson said the high turnout so far shows how people see this as an important election.
“The fact that we're seeing such enormous numbers–and it's not just in a few states, it's in basically every state that's doing early voting–they're breaking records, or they're at least matching records. It's really quite striking,” Peterson said. “Whether you want to call it enthusiasm, concern, interest, whatever term you want: Clearly, it's there. Will we see it drop off? It's possible.”
As of the end of day Wednesday, per the Wisconsin Elections Commission, nearly 200,000 people had voted in-person in Wisconsin. If you include mail-in ballots, that number jumps to about 600,000. At this point in 2020, fewer people had voted in-person, probably due to the pandemic, but the total number of ballots cast was more than 1.1 million.
“I still expect lines on election day,” Tollefson said. “I think we're going to beat our numbers from 2020, and they were high then. I expect even higher this time.”