The City of Milwaukee says 18,803 people voted in person today. Another 56,489...

[demmiblue]

The City of Milwaukee says 18,803 people voted in person today. Another 56,489 have returned absentee ballots, with as many as 40,223 still potentially in transit (issued but not yet returned). Total turnout: at least 75,292.

In the 2016 spring election, 167,765 people voted in the City of Milwaukee, so this is a steep, steep dropoff.

Link to tweet

[LisaL]

1. Of course it's a steep drop off.

They had very few voting locations open, and not everybody who wants to vote is going to stand in line for hours during an epidemic.

[bearsfootball516]

2. Normally, Milwaukee has 180 polling locations. They had 5 yesterday.

[LisaL]

3. Exactly.

It's a good bet many who wanted to vote weren't able to do so.

[frazzled]

4. Worse than even ours

Our state held its primary during COVID-19 on March 17, though a few days before stay-at-home order was issued (March 21). Turnout was low (around 38%), but not horrendous, due to large early voting and mail-in. I think that in addition to the risk, people felt that the nomination has already been clinched, and since sadly, a lot of people don't care about all the other (important) state and county races on the ballot, they didn't come out.

Despite fears over the coronavirus, Chicago’s March 17 primary election voter turnout reached nearly 38%, far above the record low but down for a contested Democratic presidential race, statistics released Monday showed.

The Chicago Board of Elections, in releasing its official tally of the results, indicated that a combination of record mail-in ballot requests and early voting helped to boost turnout as the seriousness of the COVID-19 virus became more widely known on primary day.
Overall, 575,985 ballots were cast in the city — 554,421 Democrat and 21,552 Republican — out of 1,524,598 registered voters. That’s equal to 37.8% voter turnout.

In contrast, city turnout was 53.5% in the 2016 primary, when Hillary Clinton narrowly defeated Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders statewide for the Democratic nomination, while Donald Trump defeated Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich for the GOP nomination.The 2016 turnout was even higher than the 52.7% in the 2008 primary, when then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of the city’s Kenwood neighborhood defeated Clinton en route to capturing the Democratic presidential nomination ...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-chicago-primary-turnout-coronavirus-20200406-dlvyyognmnbcflo2icdvrjn5ye-story.html