A Milwaukee resident checks over her ballot on Saturday as she votes absentee during drive-up early voting. | Rick Wood/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via AP

Wisconsin officials, including Evers, have resisted postponing the April 7 election in large part because the presidential primary between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders is not the only vote being held next week. Wisconsin also regularly schedules spring general elections for critical state and local offices, including state Supreme Court justice and mayor of Milwaukee, the state’s largest city.

But as Americans adopt social distancing to slow the spread of coronavirus, nearly 60 percent of Wisconsin’s municipalities are reporting a shortage of poll workers, according to a report on Tuesday from the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. More than 100 jusriditictions said they lack the ability to staff even one voting site right now.

The state elections commission authorized local clerks to “consolidate polling places due to a shortage of election inspectors.”

But the commission told local administrators that they can’t “eliminate the opportunity for Election Day voting, at least absent an order from a state or local health official,” according to another memo from Meagan Wolfe, the commission’s administrator. As a result, Wisconsin politicians from both parties have been strongly encouraging voters to request absentee ballots for weeks, bidding to keep engagement high while keeping voters at home.

As of Tuesday morning, over 972,000 voters across Wisconsin had requested absentee ballots. That’s a record for Wisconsin, Wolfe said at a commission meeting on Tuesday, and well over the 250,000 absentee ballots cast in the 2016 primaries — but well short of total turnout that year, when about 2.1 million people voted.

Joe Biden's campaign has adjusted to the new abnormal in Wisconsin by pushing, via text message and social media outreach, to persuade voters to cast absentee ballots. Biden is relying on his vast network of state and local endorsements in the state, and he held a tele-townhall with faith leaders that was hosted by the campaign's co-chair, Rep. Cedric Richmond, to maximize support from black voters, Biden's base.

Until coronavirus shut everything down, Biden's campaign was expecting to continue the momentum he showed in March, when he beat Bernie Sanders in six states the Vermont senator won in 2016, and score a huge win in Wisconsin, which Sanders carried over Hillary Clinton four years earlier by 13 percentage points.

Evers called last week for every voter to be mailed an absentee ballot. But election administrators said they didn’t have the supplies to do that , the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, and Republican state legislative leaders balked at the request, calling it logistically impossible.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers called last week for every voter to be mailed an absentee ballot. | Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP File

“His last-minute scheme of a mail-in ballot election is logistically impossible and incredibly flawed,” state House Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, said in a statement on Friday. “In fact, other states say it’s impossible to implement, especially two weeks before the election with countless staffing, postal and safety considerations; our local clerks are already running out of ballots and supplies.”

Absentee ballots can be requested through April 2.

The difficulties have spawned a handful of lawsuits , including some seeking to postpone the election and others looking to loosen requirements about how people can vote in Wisconsin. Progressive groups from SEIU to Souls to the Polls are calling for the election to be extended, citing voter uncertainty about whether polling places are open and concerns about access to early voting. In parts of Milwaukee, for example, early voting was open and then closed — and then reopened with drive-through availability, while at the same time, other polling locations in the suburbs allowed in-person early voting without disruption.

U.S. District Judge William Conley consolidated three of the cases over the weekend and said the court will hold a hearing on Wednesday “via videoconference, telephone, or perhaps, for a limited number of people, in person,” if necessary.

Some election officials in the state are warning of dire consequences if the election goes on as planned next week.