Name: Another fraught party divide in Wisconsin: most Republicans plan to vote in person, most Democrats by mail
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Another fraught party divide in Wisconsin: most Republicans plan to vote in person, most Democrats by mail

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Milwaukee Journal SentinelThe signs in battleground Wisconsin increasingly point to a new and volatile election scenario: a big Democratic-leaning bloc of voters casting absentee ballots — and a big Republican-leaning bloc voting at the polls on Election Day.&nbsp;Consider this finding from a Tuesday by the Marquette Law School:&nbsp;Among people planning to vote absentee by mail, Joe Biden leads the race for president by 67 points.Among people planning to vote in person on Election Day, Donald Trump leads by 41 points.While exceptionally stark, those numbers echo the and Wisconsin’s recent elections in the 2020 pandemic: that one party’s voters (Democrats) are far more than the other party’s (Republicans).Such a big partisan divide over voting method raises some stark possibilities in a state widely viewed as a possible tipping point in the race for president.One is that voting issues or problems emerge that disproportionately affect one method of voting, and therefore the choice of how to vote has an impact on the vote itself.Another is that the election tally could shift substantially — and become more favorable to Democrats — over the course of the election night or the days that follow, if the counting drags on (because mail ballots take longer to count). &nbsp;Some analysts have dubbed this Another is more post-election legal fights over the vote.And another is that Democrats and Republicans end up with very different views of the legitimacy of the outcome.“It’s unfortunate so much of this election is going to be focused on how we vote rather than the issues in the campaign and the choice between candidates,” said political scientist Charles Stewart of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. &nbsp;There are risks for both sides if one party embraces mail voting and the other doesn’t, said Barry Burden, director of the at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.If there is a surge of coronavirus cases near the election, those who had planned to vote in person may find it difficult to cast a ballot — and may not have enough time to request a ballot by mail, he said. Clerks short of poll workers might have to close polling locations, meaning some voters would have to go to new precincts and wait in longer lines. &nbsp;At the same time, those voting by mail face risks that their vote won’t be counted, Burden said. If a voter makes a mistake at the polls, the error is discovered right away, and poll workers can help rectify the situation. Those who have problems with absentee ballots won’t know about the issue until later, if at all. &nbsp;And there are many opportunities for errors. The envelopes absentee ballots are returned in must include the voter’s signature, a witness’ signature and the address of the witness. If they don’t, they aren’t counted. &nbsp;Postal problems can also prevent ballots from being counted.“A voter who sends a ballot in by mail is taking some risk that the ballot won’t arrive on time to be counted,” Burden said.&nbsp;Some ballots for state Supreme Court, and the U.S. Postal Service in recent weeks has been in turmoil.&nbsp;“It only takes one postal worker to not deliver a bin of ballots or to return it to the clerk’s office for whatever reason or to leave it in a truck or something,” Burden said. “And then you’ve got dozens or hundreds of voters who don’t have their ballots.”&nbsp;&nbsp;Then there’s the impact on the how the election count is reported in the hours and maybe days after the polls close. &nbsp;MIT’s Stewart and Ohio State law professor Edward Foley have written about a relatively recent phenomenon called the “blue shift.” That’s when the reported vote tally shifts toward Democrats over time because votes that are reported later tend to be more Democratic.Possible reasons before the pandemic included later reporting by blue-leaning cities by Democratic voters (provisional ballots, which are counted only if a voter can prove later that they were eligible to vote, are not widely used in Wisconsin.)&nbsp;But in the 2020 pandemic, with an explosion of voting by mail and Democrats more likely to vote that way, the “blue shift” could be much more dramatic as mail ballots take longer to count in some states.“The slower the count, the more that’s going to be pronounced,” Stewart said. &nbsp;Tuesday’s primary showed why absentee ballots can often take longer. In Milwaukee, a machine that opens absentee ballot envelopes broke down and clerks had to open the envelopes manually, slowing the process. Final counts weren’t tallied until after 2 a.m., and that was for a primary with a small fraction of the votes to be counted in Nov. 3.&nbsp;A small example of the “blue shift” occurred in the 2018 election for governor in Wisconsin, when the election night reporting shifted late toward Democrat Tony Evers and against GOP incumbent Scott Walker after Milwaukee reported its absentee ballot vote. That occurred at a time when the media was reporting 100% of the county’s precincts were tallied, leading some to think the entire Milwaukee vote was already in.&nbsp;Republicans, realizing what happened, didn’t challenge the count. But if in 2020&nbsp;news outlets leave viewers with the impression that all the votes are in when many mail and absentee ballots haven’t been counted, that could fuel doubts and disputes over the outcome. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“It just looks suspicious and if there’s already hostility between the parties and a lack of trust in authorities and in systems, then it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that somebody is messing with the system (in a way) that is unfair, that it’s being rigged,” Burden said. &nbsp;“Obviously, President&nbsp;Trump has already primed the pump for a series of tweets on election night charging Democrats are discovering ballots and are essentially stuffing the ballot boxes,” Stewart said. “And we’re already seeing his legal team priming the pump for denying the legitimacy of mail ballots that get counted after election day and may arrive after election day.”The potential for problems at the polls this election is high, Burden said. Those who want to vote by mail should request their ballots at least two weeks before Election Day to ensure they have time to receive and return them, he said. But many likely won’t request them that early."There are just too many different things that could happen that it seems unlikely that all of it will go smoothly,” Burden said.&nbsp;Both parties in Wisconsin are promoting absentee voting by mail among their voters, though some Republicans have expressed fear that Trump’s attacks on mail voting will depress the party’s absentee vote. &nbsp;&nbsp;“It's such a bad idea to scare our own voters away from a legit way to cast their ballot,” Rohn Bishop, the GOP chair for Fond du Lac County, State GOP chair Andrew Hitt said he didn’t share that concern, saying, “the president has not said anything (negative) about Wisconsin” and its system of absentee mail voting.Hitt said the state GOP has begun sending out absentee ballot applications to GOP voters, as it has in the past.“We really have to drive home two messages (to GOP voters). &nbsp;Vote early if you can and if you’re willing to. If not, you’ve got to vote on Election Day,” said Hitt, who said GOP voters traditionally “like to go into the polling booth (and) feel like that’s the most secure.”Hitt said the defeat of conservative state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly&nbsp;in April showed that, “we did not have the numbers we needed to show up on Election Day to overcome the early vote, and we didn’t have the number of Republicans and conservatives voting early to put Dan Kelly over the top.” &nbsp;But Hitt said he didn’t think the preference for Election Day voting by Republicans was by itself a handicap for the party in the pandemic conditions of the 2020 fall election.Democrats in the state are heavily promoting absentee voting. &nbsp;State Democratic chair Ben Wikler said Trump’s rhetoric about mail voting complicates the GOP’s effort to get voters to vote absentee.“They’re running into a Trump-shaped buzz saw because the president keeps attacking ballots cast by mail,” Wikler said. “It puts them in a very difficult position to have a president who’s deriding the very thing that many of their voters will count on to avoid risking having to go into an indoor space in the pandemic.”&nbsp;He acknowledged mail voting comes with some risks but said it also provides advantages. &nbsp;“It reduces the impact of the day-to-day news cycles on the election,” he said. “It prevents October surprises from swinging the race one way or the other. It gives people more time to research especially local races and make a clear decision while looking at an actual ballot with candidates’ names on it. And it allows campaigns and organizers to see who’s already voted so they can focus their attention on those who are yet to vote.”&nbsp;Democrats are urging people to vote absentee as early as possible so any problems can be promptly fixed, he said. &nbsp;“Part of what made the spring so challenging was the coronavirus pandemic really hit and voter behavior really changed in the space of three or four weeks,” Wikler said. “This time we have months to prepare and people can request absentee ballots right now.”&nbsp;In both the April election and Tuesday’s August primary, the big Democratic counties of Milwaukee and Dane accounted for a disproportionate share of absentee ballots returned.A of the April Wisconsin election notes voting by mail was much more popular in the more populous, urbanized southern part of the state than in the rural north. That has partisan implications because Democrats dominate in the state’s cities and Republicans in its rural places.&nbsp;Just a small proportion of voters cast ballots in person on Election Day in Milwaukee County and surrounding areas, but more than half did so in Burnett County in northwestern Wisconsin, the study noted. &nbsp;Polls are an even more striking illustration of the party gap over voting method.&nbsp;In a Wisconsin survey by the Elections Research Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Democrats prefer voting by mail (67%) to voting in person (33%), while Republicans overwhelmingly prefer&nbsp;voting in person (79%) to voting by mail (21%).In a Wisconsin poll by CBS, 62% of Democrats said they preferred to vote by mail or absentee ballot in November, compared to 25% of Republicans.And in the Marquette poll, Biden led 81% to 14% among those who plan to vote by mail and 50% to 45% among those who plan to vote early in person. But Trump led 67% to 26% among those who plan to vote at the polls on Election Day. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Burden said one reason for this pattern is that Democrats have higher concerns about getting coronavirus (and are more likely to live in densely populated communities where the risks have been higher).And some Republicans may be telling pollsters they plan to vote in-person to show their support for Trump, who has expressed skepticism about mail voting, Burden said. &nbsp;Stewart said he expected the massive partisan divide in the polling over how to vote to narrow when it comes to how Democrats and Republicans actually vote in the end.But he still expects there to be a gap, with all the potential for partisan clashes over the election that come with it. &nbsp;“The bottom line (potential) here is for an intense period of partisan rancor over the vote counting and likely an intense period of legal skirmishing and warfare in the days and weeks following the vote,” he said.&nbsp;

Milwaukee Journal SentinelThe signs in battleground Wisconsin increasingly point to a new and volatile election scenario: a big Democratic-leaning bloc of voters casting absentee ballots — and a big Republican-leaning bloc voting at the polls on Election Day.&nbsp;Consider this finding from a Tuesday by the Marquette Law School:&nbsp;Among people planning to vote absentee by mail, Joe Biden leads the race for president by 67 points.Among people planning to vote in person on Election Day, Donald Trump leads by 41 points.While exceptionally stark, those numbers echo the and Wisconsin’s recent...

Another fraught party divide in Wisconsin: most Republicans plan to vote in person, most Democrats by mail

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