Election Day is fast approaching, and Wisconsin is already seeing a surge in early absentee voting.
Nearly 300,000 people have voted in person so far. That means they have gone to their clerk's office or a polling place, filled out a ballot, put it in an envelope, and it will be counted on Election Day. That's almost 100,000 more people than had voted in person at this point four years ago.
When you include all absentee ballots that have been returned — a total that also counts people who voted by mail — nearly 575,000 people have voted in Wisconsin. That's 30,000 more at this time compared to four years ago, when there was also a governor's race and a U.S. Senate race on the ballot.
The numbers vary by county. In Milwaukee County, the biggest county in the state, 90,000 people have filled out and returned a ballot. That's about equal to what we saw four years ago. Waukesha County is up, with about 62,000 ballots returned compared to 56,000 four years ago.
Racine County, Kenosha County, Ozaukee County and Washington County are all up compared to this time four years ago.
Dane County, a Democratic stronghold, is where the trend is a little different. About 80,000 people have voted there so far, which is slightly down compared to four years ago.
Keep in mind, most people in Wisconsin vote on Election Day. In the last two races for governor, the state saw just south of 2.7 million voters by Election Day.
This story was reported on-air by Charles Benson and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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