• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. coronavirus>

Voting during the virus: Missing ballots, missing postage, delayed Democrats

Our Staff
April 09, 2020
Wisconsin primary voter

Some Wisconsin voters who had requested absentee ballots had to vote in person because their mail-in ballots did not arrive in time.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Coronavirus continues to roil the country's elections — not only in states where elections have taken place, most notoriously in Wisconsin, but also in those where voting hasn't happened yet.

A federal judge has ordered Wisconsin's results kept under wraps until next week, to allow ballots mailed in the final hours to arrive and get counted. So for now the focus after Tuesday's chaotic primary is on why so many of those envelopes didn't get to people's houses in time.

Meanwhile, at least five states are making plans to further delay or modify their primaries in hopes the voting can be free of masks and rubber gloves. And election officials in Georgia faced new complaints about their plans for making voting easier in the state's primary.

These are the latest developments:


Wisconsin

In the weeks leading up to the primary, when in-person voting looked like it would be on again and off again too many times to count, nearly 1.3 million absentee ballots were requested, according to the Wisconsin Election Commission.

Voting rights groups said the main complaint at polling places were from legions of people who said they felt compelled to venture out to vote because the ballots they'd asked for never showed up.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The Supreme Court ruled Monday night that their return had to bear an Election Day postmark at the latest. The justices reversed a lower court decision that said, because of the delays in fulfilling such a huge and late-peaking flood of requests, voters could fill out their ballots after Tuesday so long as the paper made it to election offices by Monday.

The Milwaukee Election Commission plans to seek a formal Postal Service investigation into what happened to absentee ballots that failed to reach voters, according to executive director Neil Albrecht. He said Wednesday the commission noticed a pattern where absentee ballots mailed out by the city on March 22 or 23 never arrived. He did not have exact numbers.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Election Commission head Meagan Wolfe also said her agency was going to look into the same issue. She guessed that the problem was one of data entry.

Georgia

The American Civil Liberties Union and the group Black Voters Matter filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of voters demanding that the state pick up the cost of postage to return absentee ballots.

The suit argues that the cost to voters to pay for postage amounts to a poll tax, which is illegal. It also argues that requiring people to leave their homes to buy stamps will expose them to the virus. Georgia's delayed primary is scheduled for May 19.

In addition, officials announced that about 60,000 voters received absentee ballot request forms with the wrong return mail or email address. Election officials said the absentee ballot requests will be delivered to their correct destinations, even if voters send them to the erroneous pre-printed addresses.

Delayed primaries

With their party's presidential nomination no longer being contested, Democratic governors in five states on Wednesday made plans to delay, cancel or alter the rules for their primaries.

In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam pushed back the state's congressional primaries by two weeks, to June 23.

In Maine, Gov. Janet Mills signaled congressional and legislative primaries would be delayed five weeks, to July 14.

In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy postponed congressional primaries by five weeks, to July 7, and said he was considering an all-mail primary.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he was suspending the excuse requirements for obtaining absentee ballots for the June 23 primaries for Congress and the Legislature.

In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont signaled he would take the advice of Secretary of State Denise Merrill, who called for the cancellation of the already-postponed-once June 2 presidential primaries now that both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are running unopposed for their nominations. Primaries for Congress and the General Assembly are not until Aug. 11.

From Your Site Articles
  • Judge says no to request to switch Georgia to paper ballots - The ... ›
  • Nevada, Georgia encourage voters to mail it in - The Fulcrum ›
  • As Wisconsin votes, partisan divide on voting & health grows - The ... ›
  • Wisconsin's debacle is an election security wake-up call - The Fulcrum ›
  • Mailed ballots see huge jump in Tuesday primaries - The Fulcrum ›
  • Georgia, primary marred by long waits, voting site confusion - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Wisconsin Primary Recap: Voters Forced to Choose Between Their ... ›
  • Democrats Sue Wisconsin Officials to Extend Deadlines for Early ... ›
  • Georgia Primary Postponed, Frustrating First-Time Voters : NPR ›
  • Georgia delays primary election - POLITICO ›
coronavirus

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Risks and rewards in a polarized nation: Businesses face tough choices after Roe v. Wade ruling

Richard Davies

The economic blame game, part 1: Blame your opponents

David L. Nevins

How a college freshman led the effort to honor titans of democracy reform

Jeremy Garson

Our poisonous age of absolutism

Jay Paterno

Re-imagining Title IX: An opportunity to flex our civic muscles

Lisa Kay Solomon

'Independent state legislature theory' is unconstitutional

Daniel O. Jamison
latest News

Busy day ahead with primaries or runoffs in seven states

Richard Perrins
Reya Kumar
Kristin Shiuey
26m

The state of voting: June 27, 2022

Our Staff
38m

Video: Faces of democracy

Our Staff
5h

How the anti-abortion movement shaped campaign finance law and paved the way for Trump

Amanda Becker, The 19th
24 June

Podcast: Journalist and political junkie Ken Rudin

Our Staff
24 June

A study in contrasts: Low-turnout runoffs vs. Alaska’s top-four, all-mail primary

David Meyers
23 June
Videos

Video: Memorial Day 2022

Our Staff

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey

Busy day ahead with primaries or runoffs in seven states

State of voting - election law changes

The state of voting: June 27, 2022

Voting
Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Lauren Hobart

Risks and rewards in a polarized nation: Businesses face tough choices after Roe v. Wade ruling

Corporate Responsibility
Video: Faces of democracy

Video: Faces of democracy

Leadership
Federal Reserve Jerome Powell

The economic blame game, part 1: Blame your opponents

Leveraging big ideas
Bridge Alliance intern Sachi Bajaj speaks at the June 12 Civvy Awards.

How a college freshman led the effort to honor titans of democracy reform

Leadership