Two-hour queues. Closed polling locations. Confusion, frustration and fear of catching a virus that's claimed 12,000 lives in the US already.

That's what thousands of voters in Wisconsin faced on Wednesday as they participated in a primary election that ploughed ahead after a zig-zagging display of partisanship and power.

The state showed us what happens when voting marches forward in the midst of a pandemic.

But there's just as much to be learned from the path that Wisconsin's politicians took to deciding the election should proceed unchanged.

It's the same path that the US Federal Government has started walking down.

Wisconsin intended to go forward with this up until the last minute

Just three weeks ago, the quiet midwestern state had only reported 400 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Wisconsin's Democratic Governor and Republican Congress were in agreement that the election, which entailed both local contests and the democratic presidential primary, should proceed.

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Wisconsin, one of the great "bellwether states", has a long record of voting for the eventual White House winner, regardless of his political party.

But when it came to the Democratic primary, the state was expected to further solidify Joe Biden's lead over Bernie Sanders.

Joe Biden, the Democratic presumptive nominee, is leading in Wisconsin by 28 points. ( Reuters: Elizabeth Frantz )

Though the results of Wednesday's contest won't be released until April 13, Biden leads Sanders by 28 points in the latest polls.

State officials were more concerned with carrying out the general election. The thinking was that new judges, sheriffs and mayors — whose new terms begin next week — might be critical to helping fight the virus.

But then other states started delaying their contests (now up to 16 in total), and the number of cases in Wisconsin rose to 2,500. Experts forecasted the virus would rapidly spread during the first two weeks of April.

Wisconsin municipalities, realizing that 60 per cent of polling stations would be understaffed as older volunteers stayed home, called for the election to be cancelled or postponed.

Partisan politics played a sizable role

Four days before the election, the Governor heeded those calls. He convened a special session of the only group with the power to actually change the election — the state congress — and asked them to consider shifting the entire election to vote by mail.

Wisconsin's Republican leaders ended the special session in less than 60 seconds.

They said that the change would be "logistically impossible" on such short notice and added that relaxing the state's strict voter-ID laws around mail-in ballots would lead only to fraud.

The Republican-controlled state Supreme Court ruled that the Democratic governor lacked the power to implement any changes unilaterally.

The Republican-leaning federal Supreme Court concurred on one part, saying that the governor couldn't extend the deadline to register for a mail-in ballot (though a record 1.2 million Wisconsinites managed to register in time).

Andrew Hitt, the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, cheered the moves.

He told the Atlantic that "making such a dramatic change in how we do elections in a crisis is probably not good public policy."

"That's how you do poor public policy, by doing it in a hurry," he said.

Wisconsin's battle reflects what's emerging at the federal level

Federal politicians are hoping to avoid last-minute discussion and decision-making should coronavirus threaten November's Presidential election.

Democrats tried to set aside $US2 billion ($3.2 billion) in the last coronavirus stimulus plans to guarantee universal mail-in voting, but Republicans only agreed to $US400 million for elections

None of it was earmarked specifically for mail-in voting.

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The Republican opposition to mail-in voting goes all the way to the top of the ticket.

President Trump told reporters that "people cheat with mail-in voting".

"It should be you go to a booth and you proudly display yourself. You don't send it in the mail where people can pick up — all sorts of bad things can happen … by the time it gets in and is tabulated."

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It's a line he's used since 2016, when he made baseless claims that he lost the popular vote because mail-in ballots were inaccurately counted.

Now, his campaign is reportedly working closely with the Republican National Party to launch a multi-million-dollar ad campaign against proposals to change voting in any way.

There isn't much validity to the voter fraud claims

Experts say it's pretty easy to compare ballot signatures to the ones states keep on file, although it can lead to delays in counting.

Many Wisconsin voters who asked for mail-in ballots didn't receive them in time or properly submit them. ( Reuters: Daniel Acker )

The five states that hold their elections entirely by mail haven't reported an outsized issue with fraud.

But the experience of those states do give merit to another Republican hang-up, which is that voting by mail is by no means logistically simple.

The word from Wisconsin is that many of the 1.2 million voters who requested mail-in ballots didn't receive them in time or properly submit them.

For the states with successful mail-in voting measures, it took years and money to hammer out a smooth process.

Some of it has to do with equipment and education, but perhaps the biggest part of it has to do with the time it takes to change bureaucracy, which brings us back to the Republican opposition.

There's a long history of Republicans using the line about voter fraud to cover up their real concern: increasing voter turnout.

Why would low voter turnout be a good thing for Trump?

Donald Trump is hoping to win his second term in November. ( Reuters: Kevin Lamarque )

Research by nonpartisan voting groups show that even the option of vote-by-mail increases turnout by several percentage points, driven by minority groups like Hispanics, who more reliably vote for Democrats.

The Republicans in Wisconsin didn't explicitly cite this as a concern, but those in other states did.

The House Speaker in Georgia, when deciding the fate of his own state's election, said that absentee ballots would be "extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia. Every registered voter is going to get one of these. … This will certainly drive up turnout."

The odd irony to all this talk about political parties manipulating the election to maintain power is that in Wisconsin, the result will be contested regardless of how it falls.

No one will have faith in the integrity of the outcome, not to mention the leaders swept into place because of it.

Wednesday's election is the first in a long time to end without a trace of speculation, celebration or excitement about the big winners. All anyone can talk about is the voters.