Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
WATERTOWN, Wis. — Wisconsin’s first day of early in-person balloting saw soaring turnout that overwhelmed the statewide voter-registration system, creating crashes and delays for enthusiastic voters in the swing state.
While absentee and mail-in voting has been underway for more than a month, Tuesday was the first day Cheeseheads could cast a ballot in person, and more than 97,000 took advantage — 22% more than 2020’s first in-person voting day.
That’s the number the Wisconsin Elections Commission released Wednesday while warning there may be lags in totals due to outstanding data entry.
More than 475,000 ballots have been cast through absentee and early voting in Wisconsin, including the nearly 100,000 ballots cast in person.
That high early-voter turnout caused issues at some polling places Tuesday.
“Today’s system lag was purely related to demands on the WisVote system due to high turnout,” the Wisconsin Elections Commission said. “This should not prevent any voter’s ability to vote in-person absentee today. WEC staff worked quickly to increase system capacity to ensure that clerks can continue to facilitate in-person absentee voting efficiently.”
The system crash caused a delay in some municipalities, forcing voters to wait in line, but no other issues were reported.
Glendale had lines out the door at voting precincts due to delays, but the city’s mayor, Bryan Kennedy, explained the holdup to FOX 6 Milwaukee.
“What we explained to folks is when the state database goes down we can’t issue you a ballot at that moment because we can’t guarantee if you’ve already gotten an absentee ballot, so we can’t give you a second ballot, obviously,” Kennedy told the local reporter.
The highest in-person totals thus far are in Dane County (11,862), Milwaukee County (12,282) and Waukesha County (11,397). Overall absentee voting (mail-in and in-person) totals are highest in those counties as well, with Dane at 65,969, Milwaukee at 66,776 and Waukesha at more than 45,453.
In 2020, Joe Biden won Dane County by 181,385 votes and Milwaukee County by 183,045 — 75% and 69% of the vote respectively. Donald Trump won Waukesha County by 55,743 votes, 60% of the total.
Unlike some swing states, Wisconsin does not have party-affiliation registration, so there’s no official data to tell which political party has the edge so far.
But the Dairyland Sentinel broke down early-voting numbers in key counties and concluded the share of statewide votes in the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Dane counties is down 3.5 points from this time in 2020, while the share of votes in the Republican strongholds of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties are up by 1.7 points from 2020.
While the first day of early in-person voting totals were up over 2020 by larger percentages in the Democratic strongholds than the Republican ones — and 22% up statewide — overall early voting is down to a higher degree for the Democratic counties.
Total absentee and early-voting totals two weeks before the election four years ago in Wisconsin were 1,027,585, of which 79,774 were in-person votes.
Wisconsinites cast more than 3.2 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, which Biden won by just 0.63 points — 20,682 votes.
That means roughly a third of votes in 2020 had already been cast two weeks before that pandemic Election Day.
FiveThirtyEight’s polling average gives Harris a 0.4-point advantage in Wisconsin, while the RealClearPolitics average has Trump up 2.9 points.
A Redfield & Wilton survey released this week found Harris ahead 47% to 46% in the Badger State.