Common Council

Election and Voting Update

The City Clerk's Office provided the following voting update on Friday, April 3, 2020:

Court Order

A federal judge has not postponed the election, but has changed a couple absentee deadlines and relaxed a requirement.

Deadline to request an absentee has been given a 24 hour extension to Friday, April 3, at 5pm.

Deadline to get absentee ballots into the clerk's office is now extended until Monday, April 13, at 4pm. There is no postmark by April 7 or postmark by April 13. Regardless of the postcard, the ballot must be received by us at 4pm April 13.

Requirement to get a witness signature for absentee ballots is not removed. However, if a voter is unable to get a witness despite reasonable efforts, they can provide a written affirmation to that effect and the ballot will still be counted.

Absentee Mailing Data

We have issued 82,938 absentee ballots. 34,448 ballots (41.5%) have been returned. There have been 4,344 ballots cast either in our office or curbside in front of our building. Our email backlog is 1,493. And 1,426 requests have not been processed because we still require the voters to send us copies/pictures of their voter ID. Friday is the last day for voters to register at the curbside voting. Registration after Friday will need to occur at a voter's polling place. There will be curbside voting on Saturday from 9am – 1pm, but all voters will need to be registered at their current address.

Assistance for Election Day

Engineering has begun assembling barriers for our polling places: https://twitter.com/MadisonWIClerk/status/1245825905739644928.

We also have received face shields from ETC and hand and surface sanitizer from Yahara Bay Distributors. https://twitter.com/MadisonWIClerk/status/1245826844554932225

The face shields will be given to poll workers who are facilitating curbside voting. The governor has called for the National Guard to assist in filling in poll worker deficiencies across the state. There are 111 municipalities in the state who do not have enough poll workers to operate any polling places in those municipalities. City of Madison has requested between 500-700 guardsmen.