A Wisconsin voter’s guide to dealing with Election Day pitfalls and problems

With Election Day almost upon us, many Wisconsin voters may feel anxious about facing unexpected obstacles, such as an intimidating poll watcher, or an election official challenging their eligibility.

That’s understandable, given the bitter legal fights and climate of suspicion surrounding recent election cycles.

Here’s a guide to some questions you may have on Election Day, issues you could face and what to do in those situations.

People are intimidating me at a drop box. What should I do?

Since the Wisconsin Supreme Court legalized drop boxes in July, election officials and municipal boards across the state have authorized the use of around 80 drop boxes. But drop boxes have been a target of suspicion from conservatives since 2020, when Donald Trump and his allies began fanning conspiracy theories about them.

Residents of the municipalities with drop boxes can return their ballots to them (check your municipality for more information because some municipalities close their drop boxes before Election Day), and people are also free to observe those ballot boxes. Both groups are subject to a few rules.

Voters can return only their own ballot to a drop box — no one else’s — unless they are assisting a voter who is hospitalized or has a disability, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said. In other words, you can’t return a ballot for your nondisabled spouse, but you can likely do so for an elderly parent who is in the hospital or uses a wheelchair.

Conspiracy theories about drop boxes being used for fraud have inspired calls for citizens to monitor them. They’re allowed to do that, but “not if the watching interferes with voting,” the election commission stated. People who interrupt voting proceedings risk six months in jail, and those who “prevent the free exercise of the franchise” through abduction or fraud risk a felony charge that carries up to a 3½-year prison sentence. 

If somebody impedes your ability to vote at a drop box, you can contact law enforcement. But a person simply watching you put your ballot in the box at a reasonable distance likely isn’t in the wrong.

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Somebody challenged my eligibility. Can I still vote?

Like many other states, Wisconsin has a process allowing election officials and eligible voters to challenge a voter’s eligibility. With Republicans drawing attention to the issue of noncitizen voting — which doesn’t really happen much — we may see more voters being challenged this year.

During in-person voting, a poll worker or any Wisconsin voter can challenge somebody’s eligibility to vote based on assumptions or specific knowledge about age, residency, felony status, citizenship, or certain other criteria. State law also allows clerks challenging a voter’s registration form on the basis of citizenship to ask that person to provide proof of citizenship.

But a challenge “based on an individual’s ethnicity, accent, or inability to speak English is unacceptable,” a Wisconsin Elections Commission manual says.

When a challenge happens, the poll worker places the challenger under oath and asks the person to provide the reason and evidence for the challenge. The challenged voter can provide a rebuttal, and the challenger can either withdraw the challenge or stick with it.

If the challenge isn’t withdrawn, the voter takes an oath of eligibility and proceeds to vote, with the election official marking on the ballot that it was challenged.

After the election, the local canvassing board can disqualify the ballot if its members can prove that the person who cast it wasn’t eligible.  

Note that challengers have limits, too. If a challenger appears to be disrupting the voting process frivolously, an election official can issue a warning or summon law enforcement to remove the person.

Do I need to worry about election observers?

Not if they’re obeying the rules. 

Anybody who’s not a candidate up for election is allowed to observe elections being conducted at a polling place, central count facility and other voting sites. Observers have no designated duties. They’re simply people who want to watch election proceedings, some to ensure compliance with election rules and others to understand how the voting process works.

Election observers are typically a welcome presence for election officials. But some observers can be unruly, and others may not be familiar with the rules of observing an election. The Wisconsin Elections Commission provides a primer on what they can and can’t do. Here are some of the key parts of it.

Election observers can’t electioneer, talk about the contests on the ballot, handle election documents, make calls, or interact with voters unless requested. At a polling place and clerk’s office, observers can’t use video and still cameras. At a central count location, however, video and still cameras are allowed as long as they’re not disruptive and don’t show any completed ballots.

If you see potential wrongdoing, or if an observer is intimidating you at your polling site, you can report the activity to an election official at the site.

I’m not registered to vote yet. Can I still vote?

Wisconsin allows for same-day voter registration on Election Day, but not the Saturday, Sunday or Monday before. For those seeking to register on Election Day, you need to bring to your polling site proof of residence along with a photo ID to vote. Proof of residence documents must contain the voter’s name and current address. A state ID or driver’s license with your current address could serve as both your proof of residence and voting ID, as long as it has a photo.

What if I don’t have a document required to vote?

In Wisconsin, people seeking to vote must bring a photo ID. People seeking to register must bring proof of residence and provide the number on a state-issued ID or the last four digits of their Social Security number, information that allows election officials to check registants’ eligibility.

Without that documentation, you can cast provisional ballots in two instances: 

The first is if you have a valid state-issued ID but were unable or unwilling to list the ID number when you registered. The second is if you are a registered voter but unable or unwilling to provide identification.

In either situation, you would be handed a provisional ballot, which election officials can count only if you provide the necessary documentation to poll workers by 8 p.m. on Election Day, or to their municipal clerk by 4 p.m. on the Friday following the election.

How can I make sure my absentee ballot gets counted?

A key step is to fill everything out in the presence of an adult witness. That witness can be at a distance as you complete your ballot, so you have privacy for your selections, but witnesses’ presence and the information they add to the ballot return envelope will matter. 

On that envelope — once it’s sealed with the ballot inside — voters should include their complete name as it’s listed in the voter records and address. There’s also a blank to indicate which ward or aldermanic district you live in, which you can find by entering your voter information at myvote.wi.gov/Whats-On-My-Ballot.

Then, witnesses should provide their name, address and signature on the envelope. Witnesses must be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years old, and they can’t be a candidate on the ballot unless it’s the sitting municipal clerk.

A Wisconsin court ruling now allows for some leniency in the witness address section — an incomplete address is OK as long as an election official can discern where a voter lives — but the surest way to make the ballot count is for you and the witness to provide as much detail as possible.

How late can I mail my absentee ballot?

It’s probably too late already. Although some election officials may have arranged with their local post office to speed up ballot deliveries, the U.S. Postal Service and the Wisconsin Elections Commission suggested that voters mail their ballots back no later than Oct. 29. Many municipalities in Wisconsin route their mail through a different state or Milwaukee, adding to delivery times.

At this point, it’s best to return your absentee ballot to a drop box, if there’s an open one in your town, or in person to an election official. Check your local election website or call your clerk to find out whether drop boxes are available, and where it’s best to return a ballot.

How do I know whether my absentee ballot got counted or arrived on time?

Voters can go to myvote.wi.gov/Track-My-Ballot to see how their ballot moves through different stages of the absentee ballot process. Type your information there to see whether an election official received your absentee request, sent your ballot and received your completed ballot. An orange box indicates an issue with your absentee ballot that you should call your clerk about.

It can take up to seven days after sending it in for your ballot to be marked as received. If it’s been more than that, give your clerk a call.

How do I find my polling place?

On Election Day in Wisconsin, you can cast a ballot only at the one polling site that serves your ward. If you show up at the wrong site, poll workers may be able to help you find the right one. But they’re not able to issue you provisional ballots; you’ll have to cast a ballot at your designated polling site.

You can find your polling site at myvote.wi.gov/Find-My-Polling-Place.

When will we know the election results?

Wisconsin doesn’t have a centralized system to report election results. Rather, municipalities send unofficial results to their counties, and the state’s 72 counties are required to post those results to their website. That said, you don’t need to go county by county to find who’s winning statewide. National and local media will be compiling those results and posting them to their websites.

The big question is when the count will be complete. Madison typically sends its completed results to the Dane County clerk around 10 p.m., City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said. 

In Milwaukee — whose results the overall statewide outcomes will depend on — it’s likely going to take a little longer. Absentee ballots are processed and counted at a single location, and since state law prevents any pre-processing or counting until 7 a.m. on Election Day, city officials will have an estimated 80,000 absentee ballots to count beginning in the early morning. 

That’s less than half as many as in the 2020 election, when the city had 169,000 ballots and finished counting at 3 a.m. on Wednesday.

Still, for this election “the estimate is sometime after midnight,” city spokesperson Melissa Howard said. 

That time accounts for the counting and a relatively new, transparency-focused process to have city officials witness an election official exporting results from the central count tabulators and then transport those results to the county, Howard said.

Because smaller municipalities typically tabulate results quicker, and Republican voters tend to be clustered in small, rural areas, it may appear from early returns that Republicans are winning handily in the state.

But that’s simply a matter of which ballots, and how many of them, have been counted. The numbers should be expected to change significantly as results come in from larger municipalities that take longer to count their ballots and have more Democratic voters. There may not be a clear picture of who wins Wisconsin until the morning after Election Day, or later.

Remember, too, that these election results are still unofficial. Results can change through the canvassing process and recounts. But the unofficial results should give you a pretty clear indication of which candidates won which race.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.