by Erik Gunn, Wisconsin Examiner
April 1, 2024
In spring elections across Wisconsin on Tuesday, voters will choose municipal and county leaders, judges and school board members. They will also vote on more than 90 referendum questions in school districts throughout the state.
Two ballot questions will ask whether Wisconsin’s constitution should be amended to ban outside grants to assist local elections clerks with the cost of administering elections, and whether other forms of outside elections administration assistance also should be banned.
Both the mayor of the city of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee County executive will be up for election. Several other municipal offices in the city and county also will be on the ballot.
All spring local elections in Wisconsin are officially nonpartisan, although increasingly the party affiliations of candidates are getting more attention, and political parties are participating more in some of those elections.
In addition to the nonpartisan local elections, there are also partisan presidential preference primaries.
In previous primaries this year, President Joe Biden has won enough delegates to qualify for the Democratic Party nomination at the party convention this summer. Former President Donald Trump has likewise won enough delegates in the Republican Party primaries to qualify for the Republican nomination.
Nevertheless, both parties’ primary ballots list the names of other hopefuls for the nomination, regardless of whether those individuals have suspended their campaigns.
Both parties’ primary ballots also include an option for voters to choose an “uninstructed” delegation not pledged to any individual. A national campaign for Democratic primary voters to choose “uninstructed” has been organized by critics of U.S. policy in Israel in its attacks on the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
Voters can go to MyVote.WI.Gov to learn what is on their ballot and where their polling place is.
Polls open everywhere in Wisconsin at 7 a.m. and will remain open until 8 p.m. People still in line at 8 p.m. should remain in line as they will still be able to vote.
For people who need to register or update their address, Wisconsin allows same-day voter registration. Voters need to bring a proof of residence document such as a driver’s license or state ID.
Voters who have completed an absentee ballot but have not mailed it yet will need to deliver it in person to their polling place or to their municipal clerk’s office for it to be counted. Absentee ballots that arrive after election day are not counted.
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