Wisconsin has abandoned its plan to send voters two different absentee ballots for the presidential primary, deciding that minimizing confusion is more important than potentially violating state law.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission, with three members from each party who have deadlocked for months during an intense legal fight over culling the voter rolls, was unanimous in its decision Wednesday.
The decision reverses a plan unveiled last month by the commission staff for managing the state's unusually complex 2020 election calendar — with primaries for state and local offices before the Democratic presidential primary April 7, followed by congressional and legislative primaries Aug. 11 — in light of state laws' especially precise (and frequently skirted) deadlines for seeking and receiving absentee ballots.
The initial plan involved hundreds of town clerks printing and sending "A" ballots" (with just the presidential contenders) and "B" ballots (with the other offices and the presidential names) to 81,000 people statewide who've asked to vote absentee — then counting only the "B" forms if both of them got returned.
"This is insanity," said Democratic commissioner Ann Jacobs.
Now all the winter and spring contests will appear on one ballot — except for military and overseas voters, who will still get two to comply with federal law. The state law was similarly ignored in the last two presidential election years.
Protest signs and resource information posters were hung up around a resource tent in Broadview, Illinois. Credit: Britton Struthers-Lugo, Oct. 30, 2025.
Rubber bullet wounds on Bryan’s back, after a day of protesting at the Broadview ICE facility in mid-September. He wears hospital scrubs, acquired after receiving medical attention following the pepper-spray incident earlier in the day. He returned to protest after being discharged from the hospital.Credit: Adriano Kalin (@adriano_kalin).
ICE officers gathered outside the Broadview detention center. Yellow identifying badges can be seen on the front of their uniforms and on their shoulders. Credit: Britton Struthers-Lugo, Oct. 30, 2025.
Screengrab from the Chicago Council of Lawyers. Designed by 
A white bus waits outside the Broadview Detention Center to transport detainees to a permanent detention center or to an airport. The Broadview Detention Center cannot hold detainees for longer than 12 hours, though to reflect increased enforcement operations this has been increased to 72 hours. Longer stays have been recorded since Operation Midway Blitz. Credit: By Britton Struthers-Lugo, Oct. 30, 2025.
A paper outlining resources and ways to report federal law enforcement activity around Chicago hangs on a gate in the protestor “free speech zone”.Credit: Britton Struthers-Lugo. Oct. 30, 2025.
