Wisconsin officials call for prompt ballot return after court rules against proposed backup plan

This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Election officials are again urging Wisconsin voters to return their absentee ballots as early as possible after an Oct. 6 court ruling blocked a plan that would have allowed voters with late-arriving mail ballots to cast provisional ballots on Election Day. That decision led officials to double down on their long-standing advice for voters to submit absentee ballots well in advance, whether by mail or through alternative return methods. Voters should not mail back their ballots if Election Day is less than two weeks away, Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson told reporters on a call Tuesday. Instead, she said, “We want them to actually deliver it to the clerk directly, use a drop box, find an alternate method, because if we don’t have it by 8 p.m. we can’t count it.” Two-thirds of Wisconsin clerks observed issues with absentee ballot mail deli