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Election Results: When will Wisconsin’s ballots be counted by?

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At this point, it is common knowledge that the full results of the 2020 presidential election will not be known on Election Night. The pandemic has pushed voters to overload state election systems as well as the United States Postal Service with tens of millions of postal ballot (both “mail-in” and “absentee”) requests, something which nearly all states were unprepared for. It’ll all come down to the swing states, as per usual. This time, however, it’s a question of when we’ll get these results.

We’ve talked about when Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan‘s election results might be released—now let’s look at another swing state: Wisconsin.

For an explanation about the difference between mail-in and absentee ballots, check out this piece here by Ben Wilson: The Difference Between Absentee and Mail-In Ballots.

Like Michigan, Wisconsin is (or was) considered part of the Democrats’ “Blue Wall” of support in the Great Lakes region. Here, blue-collar support has traditionally been strong and well-organized, with this bloc of voters having voted Democratic for decades. That changed in 2016, when a certain Donald Trump became the Republicans’ nominee for president. Trump won the state with less than 23,000 votes.

Ordinarily, 6% of Badger State voters cast absentee ballots, according to The Wisconsin State Journal.

“But this year, because of the coronavirus pandemic, a record-high number of ballots are being cast absentee,” said The State Journal. “As of Tuesday, more than 915,000 absentee ballots had been returned out of 1.4 million requested. That is 30% of the total ballots cast in 2016.”

Additionally, for a ballot to be counted, it must be received by the election clerk by 8 pm (Central Time). However, that could change. The State Journal reports that the U.S. Supreme Court is contemplating “a lawsuit that seeks to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots received by Nov. 9.”

This law could severely delay the results for quite a few days by creating a backlog of ballots that, on Election Day, election workers have to count on top of the votes from polling stations that very day.

Further complicating matters, Wisconsin has a specific rule which mandates that the vote count cannot be paused, even for an evening, until all the ballots are counted. According to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, this law “doesn’t allow local officials to stop their count and reconvene the next morning, so many of them will have to pull an all-nighter.”

Assembling all these details together, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that most of Wisconsin’s results will be revealed within a week after November 3. Regardless, so many variables are up in the air and, as I’ve said previously in this series, anything can happen—especially in 2020.

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.

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RFK Jr. announces lifelong Democrat, advocate of left-leaning causes, CA native as running mate

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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced Tuesday that attorney and tech entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan will be his vice presidential running mate in the upcoming election. The Independent candidate announced his choice for the 38-year-old Oakland, California native by praising her insight into “how Big Tech uses AI to manipulate the public,” her athletic ability, and willingness to be a “partner” in a number of policy areas, including on securing the border.

Fox News writes that Shanahan is a philanthropist with a long history of donating to Democrat and left-leaning causes, including supporting President Biden in his 2020 election bid before switching to Kennedy when he launched his own run for the Democrat nomination last year.

She is the founder and president of Bia-Echo Foundation, a private firm that describes its mission as focused on “new frontiers in reproductive longevity & equality, criminal justice reform and a healthy & livable planet.”

Fox News reports Shanahan initially dropped her support for Kennedy after he decided to run as an independent, but later got behind him again by giving $4 million to the super PAC that boosted his candidacy with a John F. Kennedy-themed campaign ad that ran during the Super Bowl in February.

Shanahan also previously donated to Democrat presidential candidates Marianne Williamson and Pete Buttigieg during the 2020 presidential race, and threw more than $150,000 behind progressive Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon’s 2020 election bid.

Shanahan, a life-long Democrat, told the crowd that she was leaving the party.

“The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party of compassion. It is supposed to be the party of free speech, and most importantly, the party of the middle class and the American dream,” Shanahan said.

“While I know many Democrats still abide by those values…I do believe they’ve lost their way in their leadership,” she continued.

And she urged “disillusioned” Democrats and Republicans to support Kennedy’s independent White House bid.

 

 

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