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In Fall 2016 Election, Madison Surpassing 2012 Fall Election Absentee Ballot Total

Milwaukee, Dane Counties Account For 29 Percent Of Early Voter Turnout So Far

Woman voting
Tony Dejak/AP Photo

With a little less than two weeks of early voting to go, Madison has surpassed early voter turnout numbers from the 2012 presidential election.

In the November 2012 election, “29,000 absentee ballots were returned and recorded,” Madison Mayor Paul Soglin said Wednesday. “We’re already at 32,000 this week.”

Madison is bringing staff from other departments to assist the city clerk’s office with absentee ballots for the rest of the election season, Soglin said.

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Nearly 328,000 voters have cast absentee ballots in Wisconsin so far.

That total reported Wednesday by the state Elections Commission is about half of the 659,000 absentee ballots cast by Election Day in 2012.

Many cities continue to expand locations where voters can cast absentee ballots in person. About 71 percent of the ballots returned so far were cast in person.

Much of the turnout has come from areas that heavily expanded early voting, such as Milwaukee and Dane counties.

Turnout continues to be strong in the heavily Democratic counties of Milwaukee and Dane. About 29 percent of the statewide total has been cast there. About 51,000 ballots have been returned in Milwaukee County compared with about 44,000 in Dane County.

About 14 percent of all absentee ballots have been cast in the conservative Republican counties of Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee that surround Milwaukee. Nearly 48,000 ballots have been returned there.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include original reporting from WPR.