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

Wed Apr 8 06:54:55 PDT 2020

Thanks for the data so far.  For WI, do we have data on percent absentees returned in the presidential primaries of 2016 and 2012, which would probably be the best comparison.

From: Lindsay Nielson [mailto:LNielson at forsmarshgroup.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 9:50 AM
To: Michael Morley <mmorley at law.fsu.edu>; Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu>; Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: RE: [EL] How Many Absentee Votes Would Normally Be Expected in WI

2018 general election data tells the same story-Wisconsin transmitted 168,788 mail ballots and 150,114 were returned, for a rate of 89%. I would expect about 1.13-1.15 million returned mail ballots based on these trends. Of course, another big story here is that mail ballot requests/transmissions have gone up by an order of magnitude for this election.

Wisconsin also has a pretty high count rate-in the 2016 and 2018 general elections, about 99% of returned ballots were counted. Given the explosion in the number of mail ballot requests for this election, I would be interested to see if that rate goes down.

-----
Lindsay Nielson, Ph.D.
Senior Researcher | Fors Marsh Group
lnielson at forsmarshgroup.com<mailto:lnielson at forsmarshgroup.com>
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From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>> On Behalf Of Michael Morley
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 9:36 AM
To: Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu<mailto:rick.pildes at nyu.edu>>; Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>>
Subject: Re: [EL] How Many Absentee Votes Would Normally Be Expected in WI

According to the EAC's 2016 EAVs report, in the 2016 general election, Wisconsin transmitted 158,846 absentee ballots and 139,988 were returned (88%).   Obviously a presidential primary isn't completely comparable, but it may be a helpful data point.

Nationwide, BTW, about 41.7 million absentee ballots were transmitted in that race, and 33.4 million were returned.  That reflects the 80% estimate you referenced.

________________________________
From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>> on behalf of Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu<mailto:rick.pildes at nyu.edu>>
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 9:23 AM
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu<mailto: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.

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