Mail-in absentee voting is down nearly 18% across Wisconsin compared to four years ago, with more pronounced declines in heavily Dem Milwaukee and Madison, according to a check of new numbers released by the Elections Commission.
In Madison, voters had requested 29.3% fewer absentee ballots as of Monday’s update from the Election Commission compared to 2022. The number of requested ballots was down 19.7% in Milwaukee.
Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutiérrez said her office has noticed the decline in absentee ballots compared to four years ago. That includes an uptick in the number of voters with absentee ballot requests on file who canceled them, indicating they planned to vote in person or through early, in-person absentee voting.
Early voting begins Oct. 20, and Gutiérrez said that will give a better feel for what’s driving the drop in absentee ballot requests.
In the past month, there’s been a high-profile battle over Donald Trump’s efforts to restrict mail-in voting, though the president posted a video over the weekend encouraging Republicans to “use every appropriate tool,” including mail-in voting to win the midterms. There have also been concerns about the U.S. Postal Service being able to deliver ballots on time.
“That will really define, we think, what absentee voting is going to look like,” Gutiérrez said.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has been posting daily updates on the number of absentee ballots requested, mailed and returned by county and municipality. Monday’s update is the first that can be compared to numbers the commission posted for the 2022 election.
Four weeks from the Nov. 3 election, Wisconsin voters have requested 329,449 absentee ballots by mail, compared to 400,780 at the same point in the 2022 cycle.
The drop-off in Milwaukee County is even more significant than in the city, with 21.6% fewer requests, a drop of 14,822. For Dane County, meanwhile, there have been 23.9% fewer ballots requested, a difference of 15,159 compared to four years ago.
The numbers are also down in Republican Waukesha and Washington counties. The requests are down 9.4% in Waukesha County, a difference of 3,045 ballots, and 15.2% in Washington County, a drop of 1,293.
State GOP spokesperson Anika Rickard said the numbers suggest a lack of enthusiasm among Dem voters in places like Madison and Milwaukee.
“We continue to push voters to vote early,” Rickard said.
WisDems spokesperson Rachel La Due said the party isn’t concerned about the drop, attributing it to another sign of a return to pre-COVID-19 pandemic behavior. Absentee voting dropped nearly 23% in 2024 compared to the 2020 election.
La Due said the party also plans to ramp up its early voting efforts later this month to focus on in-person absentee balloting. She added the WisDems data team believes Dem voters are returning their absentee ballots at a higher rate than Republicans.
“We feel confident that not only are more Democrats returning more early ballots than Republicans, but that Wisconsinites will bring in the blue wave on November 3rd by defeating Republicans up and down the ballot,” La Due said.