Wisconsin Votes Amid Trump's Assault on Mail-In Ballots—But Nothing Changes Today

Polls opened across Wisconsin at 7 a.m. Tuesday for the state's non-partisan spring elections, with voters deciding a contested state Supreme Court race and hundreds of local contests. The election proceeds under the same rules that have governed Wisconsin voting for years—despite a national firestorm over Trump's attempts to restrict mail-in voting.

The backdrop matters. Last week, Trump signed an executive order seeking to severely curtail access to voting by mail, part of a broader Republican push to make voting harder under the guise of preventing fraud that doesn't exist. He's also pressuring congressional Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, legislation designed to complicate voter registration by targeting the phantom menace of non-citizen voting—a problem with zero evidence of occurring in statistically significant numbers.

But none of that affects Wisconsin voters today.

"As it pertains to the April 7, 2026 election, there are no changes," Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe said at a Monday news conference. "When voters head to the polls on April 7, they should know that nothing has changed. The same processes that you've used to vote in the last number of years are still in place."

Trump's mail-in ballot restrictions are being challenged in court and haven't taken effect. The SAVE Act hasn't become law. Photo ID requirements remain unchanged. The process for casting a ballot—stating your name and address, showing ID, signing the poll book—is identical to previous elections.

Polls remain open until 8 p.m. Voters still in line when polls close can still cast ballots. Absentee ballots must be received by local election officials by 8 p.m.—it's too late to mail them, but voters can drop them at polling places, municipal clerk offices, or designated drop boxes.

Absentee Turnout Drops After Last Year's High-Stakes Race

As of Monday, 424,651 absentee ballots had been requested and 324,396 returned, according to WEC data. That's a steep decline from last year's spring election, when a Supreme Court race that could shift the court's ideological balance drew massive national attention. In 2025, 750,240 absentee ballots were requested and 693,981 returned.

This year's Supreme Court race features Court of Appeals Judges Maria Lazar and Chris Taylor competing for an open seat. Voters will also decide circuit court races, hundreds of school board contests, school referendum questions, and other local races.

Republicans Manufacture Outrage Over Clerk Error With Built-In Safeguards

On Monday, the Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a complaint with WEC after Green Bay mistakenly sent 152 people two absentee ballots due to what City Clerk Celestine Jeffries called a "system glitch."

The party's response was predictable. Since 2020, Wisconsin Republicans have relentlessly promoted conspiracy theories about the state's election systems, laying groundwork for future attempts to overturn results they don't like.

"Wisconsin law is clear: one voter, one ballot," declared party chair Brian Schimming—a man who participated in the scheme to submit false Electoral College ballots for Trump after the 2020 election. "This reckless failure by the Green Bay Clerk has created serious risks of double voting and fraud."

The claim is nonsense. Wisconsin's system has multiple safeguards preventing anyone from casting two ballots, even if they receive two.

Wolfe explained the process at Monday's news conference. State law prevents her from commenting on specific complaints, but she outlined how duplicate ballots are handled.

"If two ballots come back, one of them is rejected, because only one ballot can be checked in and actually sent to be tabulated per voter," Wolfe said. The rejection happens as part of a public process at the polling place or tabulation site, where observers can watch. "We always, in this situation, encourage our clerks to be very transparent in exactly how these are handled and the many, many safeguards that are in place to ensure that only one ballot can be counted."

In other words: A clerical error sent duplicate ballots. The system catches duplicate returns. No one gets to vote twice. Republicans know this—they're manufacturing outrage to undermine confidence in elections.

It's the same playbook they've used since Trump lost in 2020. Seize on minor administrative errors, ignore the safeguards that prevent those errors from affecting outcomes, and scream about fraud. The goal isn't election security—it's election skepticism.

Wisconsin voters can ignore the noise. The rules haven't changed. The safeguards work. And despite Trump's best efforts to restrict voting nationwide, today's election proceeds under the same laws that have governed Wisconsin for years.

Polls close at 8 p.m. Voters can find polling locations, check registration status, and access same-day registration information at MyVote.WI.gov.