As the Biden campaign fights to win the battleground state, a court decision has spurred an all-out effort to track down every last vote.
They’re well-organized, they’re well-funded and they have a message: Return your absentee ballot, but don’t use the mail. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin and its supporters have been on an absentee-voting education crusade since the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, advising people how to request, fill out and return their ballots. Now, in the wake of a Supreme Court decision Monday disqualifying absentee ballots that officials receive after Election Day, the party is scrambling to get out its message, this time imploring voters to return ballots to their election clerk’s office or use drop boxes, rather than putting them in a mailbox. “We’re phone banking. We’re text banking. We’re friend banking. We’re drawing chalk murals, driving sound trucks through neighborhoods & flying banners over Milwaukee. We’re running ads in every conceivable medium,” Ben Wikler, the party’s chairman, tweeted after the Supreme Court decision. The party is also in search of missing absentee ballots. About 1,778,157 Wisconsin voters have requested absentee ballots, and of those,1,451,462 have either returned them or cast their votes in person. That means 326,695 ballots are still out there, according to the latest figures released by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. With the state shattering its own records this week for new coronavirus cases and deaths, the challenge may come down to making sure those voters leave their homes to turn in their ballots. The wayward ballots could make the difference whether President Trump or Joseph R. Biden Jr. wins the White House. Though Mr. Biden, the Democratic nominee, has maintained a steady polling lead in Wisconsin, Mr. Trump carried the state in 2016 by the razor-thin margin of 22,748 votes. Under the Supreme Court ruling, which may have implications in other states, mailed ballots must be received by 8 p.
