WATERTOWN, Wis. — Turnout soared on the first day of early voting in Wisconsin, overwhelming voter registration systems across the state and causing confusion and delays for eager voters in battleground states.
Absentee and mail-in voting has been in place for more than a month, but Tuesday was the first day cheeseheads could vote in person, with more than 97,000 people taking advantage. This is 22% more than the first in-person voting day in 2020.
Those are numbers from the Wisconsin State Board of Elections. released Wednesday warned that totals could be delayed due to backlogged data entry.
More than 475,000 votes have been cast in Wisconsin through absentee and early voting, including about 100,000 votes cast in person.
This high early voting rate caused problems at some polling places on Tuesday.
“Today's system delays are purely related to the demands on the WisVote system due to high voter turnout,” the Wisconsin Elections Commission said in a statement. “This does not preclude the ability of today's voters to vote absentee in person. WEC staff is working to increase system capacity so that clerks can continue to efficiently cast in-person absentee ballots. We worked quickly.”
A system crash caused delays in some municipalities and forced voters to wait in line, but no other problems were reported.
glendale had There's a line outside the door Votes were cast at polling places due to delays, but Mayor Brian Kennedy explained to FOX 6 Milwaukee about the hold-up.
“What we've explained to people is that if the state database goes down, we can't issue you a ballot at that time, because we can't guarantee if you've already received an absentee ballot, so you can't get a second one. Because you can't hand over your ballot, obviously,'' Kennedy told local reporters.
So far, Dane County (11,862), Milwaukee County (12,282) and Waukesha County (11,397) have the highest number of in-person infections. Absentee voting totals (by mail and in-person) were also highest in these counties, with Dane at 65,969, Milwaukee at 66,776 and Waukesha at 45,453.
In 2020, Joe Biden won Dane County with 181,385 votes and Milwaukee County with 183,045 votes (75% and 69% of the vote, respectively). Donald Trump received 55,743 votes in Waukesha County, 60% of the total.
Unlike some battleground states, there is no official party registration in Wisconsin, so there is currently no official data on which party is in the lead.
However, the Dairyland Sentinel broken An analysis of early voting numbers in major counties shows that the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Dane counties' overall vote share has decreased by 3.5 percentage points from this time in 2020, while the Republican stronghold of Waukesha County, The vote share in Ozaukee and Washington counties increased by 1.7 percentage points compared to 2020.
First-day early voting totals have increased by a larger percentage in Democratic strongholds than in Republican strongholds throughout 2020, with a 22% increase statewide, but overall early voting numbers were higher in Democratic counties than in Democratic strongholds. has decreased significantly.
Four years ago, a total of 1,027,585 people voted absentee and early in the two weeks before the election in Wisconsin, of which 79,774 voted in person.
Wisconsinites cast more than 3.2 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, and Biden won by just 0.63 points (20,682 votes).
This means roughly a third of the 2020 votes have already been cast two weeks before election day due to the pandemic.
The FiveThirtyEight polling average gives Harris a 0.4 point lead in Wisconsin, while the RealClearPolitics poll gives Trump a 2.9 point lead.
A Redfield & Wilton poll released this week found Harris leading in the Badger State by a margin of 47% to 46%.
