Rural Wisconsin is behind the state's shift in early voting

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

In recent elections, the Namakagon town clerk has received multiple calls from voters asking whether the ballots they returned by mail had arrived. Town Clerk Laura Bjork had to break the news to voters in the 300-person town that they hadn’t.

“I’m like, ‘I cannot tell you why, and I apologize. I’m not in control of that mail,’” she said. “It made me very upset because I do push for people to vote.”

As the mail has slowed down, Bjork said there has been a shift to early in-person voting.

“I like it when people do come and [vote in person] because you know for sure that you’re getting that ballot back,” she said.

In Namakagon, in southern Bayfield County, 27 voters had cast in-person absentee ballots as of Thursday, a 35% increase from the same point in 2022. Meanwhile, the number of absentee ballots returned through other methods, including by mail, fell from 31 to 23.

That shift mirrors a dramatic change unfolding across Wisconsin. Statewide, in-person absentee voting has surged 54% compared with the same point in 2022, with more than 344,000 ballots cast that way. Every Wisconsin county has seen an increase, and in 16 counties, the number has at least doubled. In-person voting now accounts for more than half of all returned absentee ballots statewide, up from about 38% at this point in 2022.

The changing voter behavior comes as ProPublica found that mail delays have soared in rural counties as a result of U.S. Postal Service cost-cutting measures, often adding a day or longer to delivery times. The Postal Service has reduced mail pickups from twice daily to once daily in many communities, particularly those far from major processing facilities. Data ProPublica shared with Votebeat shows that, as of the 2026 midterm elections, those mail changes had been implemented across nearly all of Wisconsin, except for the Milwaukee metro area and a small portion of northwestern Wisconsin near Minneapolis.

In Wisconsin, absentee ballots must reach election officials by 8 p.m. on Election Day to be counted, regardless of when they were mailed. That means even a short postal delay could prevent an otherwise valid ballot from being counted.

Namakagon is in one of the ZIP codes where ProPublica found mail slowdowns. So is Manitowish Waters, a lakeside town 70 miles to the east.

There, clerk Heather Suffron said early in-person voting is higher than usual. As of Thursday morning, 48 people in the 600-person town had voted in person, a 37% increase from 35 at this point in 2022.

Voters have given her multiple reasons for voting early in person, including worries that a mail ballot wouldn’t arrive at their house or back at the clerk’s office in time.

Suffron offers three hours of early voting per day, as she has since her tenure started a few years ago. But this year she added five additional hours on the last Friday of early voting.

“If I can make it easier for people who are trying to vote, then I’m happy to do that,” she said.

All 16 Wisconsin counties where early in-person voting has at least doubled from this point in 2022 are outside the state’s major urban centers. Those counties stretch across Wisconsin, from Florence County, along the border of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, to Iowa County in the thick of the state’s scenic driftless region and Trempealeau County, which touches the Mississippi River.

The largest increases in actual ballot numbers came from Wisconsin’s most populous counties. Milwaukee, Dane and Waukesha counties together accounted for nearly 40% of the statewide increase in early in-person voting. But early in-person voting has grown fastest in smaller, rural counties, where changes to Postal Service operations have raised concerns about mail reliability.

In Clark County, in central Wisconsin, in-person absentee voting has increased 180%, from 67 ballots at this point in 2022 to 188 as of Thursday. Clerk Christina Jensen told Votebeat she wasn’t exactly sure what was driving the increase, but said voting early in-person is often easier and more convenient for voters than casting ballots another way.

With mail delays now present across the state, Bjork, in Namakagon, said she now favors early voting.

“Mail service is just unreliable as of late, and if anyone would ask my opinion, I would say in-person is definitely more reliable,” Bjork said. “You’re handing it right to somebody.”

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

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