Wisconsin can reduce costs and increase voter convenience by expanding its permanent absentee option, on which voters can sign up to automatically be sent an absentee ballot for each election without having to re-apply, to all voters. Currently, only elderly and permanently disabled residents may sign up. States experience significant savings with these lists; on average, states save $1 for every request they no longer need to process.

Automatic voter registration would improve upon Wisconsin’s same day voter registration to ensure that any eligible resident who wants to cast a ballot in an election can. In addition, with a drastic increase in mail ballots, Wisconsin has a great opportunity to reach for the gold standard of post-election security by implementing risk limiting audits.

We recommend codifying the secure drop boxes added in 2020 into law. Offering secure drop boxes is a cost-effective way to reduce strain on the postal system, and boxes are sometimes a preferred method by voters who want an extra bit of reassurance that their ballot makes it to the elections office on time.

We highly recommend creating vote centers, or polling locations where any voter in the county can vote. This is a way to streamline the system so over time, as the share of the vote cast by mail increases, counties can have fewer overall polling locations, while individual voters will have more voting location options.

Accepting ballots with Election Day postmarks shortly after election day is a best practice to ensure that voters are given all options to vote their ballot in a timely manner, as it is estimated in most jurisdictions to decrease ballot rejection rates by half. State court decisions implemented temporary Election Day postmark acceptance for the 2020 election cycle; Wisconsin now has the opportunity to permanently increase voter convenience by codifying the policy. We recommend that not only does a state allow the physical postmark on a ballot, but also to integrate into the USPS system for electronic postmarks to serve as validation that a ballot was mailed on time.

Ballot tracking software such as Ballot Scout or Ballot TRACE can be a very cost effective tool to improve Wisconsin’s current ballot tracking system. An expanded notification system helps keep rejection rates low and increases voter confidence and participation.

Requiring that election officials contact voters about ballot issues will help decrease rejection rates, as Wisconsin is currently the only state that only recommends, rather than requires, voter notification during the cure process. Additionally, extending the period voters can cure any fixable issues with their ballots to 5 days after election day (rather than a deadline of election day) would reduce rejection rates.

As use of absentee ballots increases, it is important to make sure that the ballots received are being filled out by the individuals they were sent to. We recommend implementing signature verification to ensure the security of the election process, as the witness requirements that the state currently has are simultaneously less secure and raise barriers for voters.

Processing mail ballots to get them ready for counting before election day will help Wisconsin get faster election results. Preliminary data also suggests that preprocessing helps avoid any blue or red shifts when there are differences in the partisan lean of mail vs. in person ballots, which could increase voter confidence in the results of elections.