[EL] How Many Absentee Votes Would Normally Be Expected in WI

[David Becker]

The national average in 2016 was 74%, but that was largely driven down by states like CA that send a lot of mail ballots out. Most states seem to be between 75-90%

In the 2016 general election, Wisconsin saw 88% of its mail ballots returned. In the 2018 general election, it was 89%.

David J. Becker | Executive Director and Founder
Center for Election Innovation & Research
1120 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 1040, Washington, DC  20036
(202) 550-3470 (mobile) | dbecker at electioninnovation.org<mailto:dbecker at electioninnovation.org>
www.electioninnovation.org<http://www.electioninnovation.org/> | @beckerdavidj

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf Of Pildes, Rick
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 9:24 AM
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] How Many Absentee Votes Would Normally Be Expected in WI

I might post on this, but before doing so, I wanted to check a figure with election administrators or others on the list -

My understanding is that election administrators normally expect about 80% of the absentee ballots that are sent out to be returned.

If that's a correct rule of thumb, how do things look as of now in WI?  There were 1.287 M requests for absentee ballots (I will use that higher figure, rather than the number sent out, which is about 12,000 lower).  80% of that would be 1.03 M, which would be the number of absentee ballots we would then normally expect to be returned.

As of 7.30 am today, 1.02 M absentee ballots have been returned.  That number will continue to grow over the next week, given that these ballots are valid if received by April 13th.

I have not tracked down data on this, but I assume others can tell me whether that 80% figure is roughly correct under normal circumstances.









-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20200408/ff50f212/attachment.html>