The first things that hit my electric Twitter machine feed Tuesday morning were photos and videos of Wisconsin voters, most of them masked and distanced socially, waiting in line to vote in that state’s primary election. This jerry-rigged burlesque of an election was made possible by the Republican majority in the Wisconsin legislature, and the conservative majorities in both the Wisconsin and United States Supreme Court. All the sturm und drang was occasioned by the Wisconsin GOP’s desire to hang onto a seat on that state supreme court, thereby avoiding having its majority reduced to 4-3 from 5-2. It was impossible for me to sort out my reaction to the videos from the polling places. I mean, can something be brave, thrilling, terrifying, hopeful, and infuriating, all at the same time? Apparently so.



According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, there has been a rush on absentee ballots statewide. In Delafield, for example, where 625 absentee ballots were returned in 2016, the town clerk reported that 2,660 had been returned by noon on Thursday. In the larger cities and towns, things were pretty much the same.



The counties that are generating a disproportionately high share of the absentee vote are concentrated in populous southern Wisconsin. In fact, the three counties at the top of this list are the state’s biggest: very Democratic Milwaukee and Dane and very Republican Waukesha.

Can something be brave, thrilling, terrifying, hopeful, and infuriating, all at the same time? Andy Manis Getty Images

This is not a surprise, according to Gilbert. These three counties represent the areas with the most coronavirus cases, where voters are more motivated to vote by mail rather than in person. They may also be the three most politically mobilized counties in Wisconsin. And they historically cast more of their vote by absentee ballot than any other counties in the state.

Meanwhile, the counties that are generating a disproportionately low share of the absentee vote are concentrated in northern and western Wisconsin, especially in the Republican-leaning 16-county Green Bay media market.



The fact is that everybody in the state should have been able to vote by mail and the election should have been postponed. But voter suppression, finagling, and outright ratfcking is so much a part of the conservative DNA by now that the Republican Party cannot conceive of an election without them.

So I admire the people who have turned out in Wisconsin today, masks and all, in order to flip the bird at all the people who have tried to undermine the franchise on them. I hope they will all be well, although I suspect that will not be the case. I am also not optimistic that a rash of cases connected to Tuesday’s election will be enough to get vote-by-mail instituted by November. That would require both political parties to give a damn about both democracy and public health, and the president*’s party has demonstrated that it doesn’t care about either one.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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