According to the City Clerk’s Office, more than 14,000 Madison residents cast an early ballot for the upcoming city elections Tuesday, continuing a recent trend of strong voter turnout.
Madison libraries, in addition to other locations on the UW-Madison, Edgewood and Madison College campuses, were open for in-person absentee voting. The total also includes ballots cast through the mail.
When compared to the final total of the 2015 mayoral election, when incumbent mayor Paul Soglin handily defeated former ald. Scott Resnick, this year’s early votes would make up about 27 percent. Though lower than the early voting rates from last year’s midterms, the upcoming election would appear to be on track for a turnout larger than in 2015.
Last year’s midterm elections broke an early voting record for Madison, with numbers up 400 percent from the 2014 midterms. Early votes in the midterm represented about 31 of the final total. Early voting was also very popular in the municipal primaries in February, with totals more than four times the amount of early votes cast in the 2011 and 2015 primaries, combined.
Since this year’s primary went on to have 15,000 more votes than the primary in 2015, it seems likely Madison voters will turn out in large numbers to cast their ballot. Also contributing to the buzz around the election is a hotly contested state Supreme Court election that could draw more people than usual to the polls.
