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Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022

Has there already been more early voting in Wisconsin in 2022 than the last midterm election in 2018?

Jacob Alabab-Moser, Wisconsin Watch
yes

Wisconsin's early voting turnout for the 2022 midterm elections surpassed that the last midterm election in 2018. As of Nov. 8, 2022, a total of 741,795 people had voted early via mail or in person. That compares to 547,954 who voted early at the same point in 2018 — a 35% increase. The state's most heavily populated counties, Milwaukee and Dane, had the highest number of early voters.

The growth in absentee ballots in Wisconsin mirrors a larger trend of early voting increases in other key battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. 

Fewer Wisconsinites have voted early in 2022 than in the 2020 presidential election. Such presidential contests typically see much larger turnouts than the midterms. And in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged even higher-than-usual absentee voting.

See a full discussion of this at Wisconsin Watch

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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