Adopt the Florida Model Now

Every Election Night, every single Republican in Wisconsin knows it’s coming. They all worry about it, whisper about it, wonder if their lead will be enough to withstand it. Then, in the dead of night, the inevitable happens: The City of Milwaukee buries them in tens of thousands of absentee votes.

On four straight Election Nights, the dreaded ballot dump has cost a Republican statewide office. In 2018, it was Governor Scott Walker. Two years later, President Trump. In 2022, Tim Michels. And earlier this month, Eric Hovde. The Republican Senate candidate conceded defeat this week, but not before highlighting the egregious vote-counting delays in Milwaukee that amount to incompetence at best and outright corruption at worst.

“The results from Election Night were disappointing,” he said in a video posted to X on Monday, “particularly in light of the last-minute absentee ballots that were dropped in Milwaukee, flipping the outcome.”

Like Walker, Trump, and Michels before him, Hovde spent much of Election Night believing he would win, but at the stroke of 4:00 am, Milwaukee’s ballots were finally counted and his lead vanished.

This in itself was not evidence of any impropriety, but the circumstances surrounding Milwaukee’s absentee ballot count were suspicious to say the least. Under Wisconsin law, absentee ballots may be counted as soon as the polls open on Election Day, but Milwaukee Election Commission director Paulina Gutierrez decided to wait nearly two hours for reasons she never fully explained.

After 30,000 ballots were counted, Gutierrez alerted the media that election observers noticed that the doors on all 13 of Milwaukee’s tabulators were not properly closed when the city’s Central Count facility opened that morning. There was no evidence that the machines had been tampered with, she assured the public, but the anticipated 2:00 am ballot dump would have to be postponed at least a few hours. A late night would get even later, and Wisconsin’s most questionable vote count would last just a little bit longer.

Is this really the best this state can do? Must its people really put up with the same city holding up every statewide election? And must the entire country forever wonder whether that city is deliberately slow walking its count to deliver as many ballots as possible to the political party that always seems to win in the dead of night?

Wisconsin can do better and, to maintain faith in its electoral system, it must do better. Ballots can be counted much faster and results can be posted almost instantly after the polls close each Election Night. The State of Florida has proven that.

A global laughingstock following the 2000 Presidential Election, Florida overhauled its entire administrative system a few months later when it passed the Election Reform Act of 2001. Within two decades, the worst state in the country at counting votes became by far the best.

In the 2020 Presidential Election, Florida—the third most populous state in America—had a staggering 93 percent of its votes counted and reported within 90 minutes of the polls closing. By contrast, California was still counting two weeks later. Even much smaller swing states had so many ballots left to count in the days following Election Day that the race wasn’t called for President Biden until four days later.

Florida’s success lies in allowing absentee ballots to be processed and prepared for counting nearly a month before Election Day itself. As the country’s top destination for retirees and snowbirds, Florida sees a massive amount of mail-in votes each cycle and local election officials are allowed to spread their work out over 25 days. They are not allowed to begin counting the ballots until 15 days before Election Day, but they can spend 10 days checking voter information, matching signatures, and otherwise getting the ballots ready for the count.

Under state law, in-person early voting ends two days before Election Day, giving those workers more time to process and tabulate. In most instances, municipalities are required to finish counting their ballots on the day before Election Day. That allows them to spend Election Day itself working with the huge crowds of day-of voters. With the absentee votes already tabulated, all results are legally required to be posted within 30 minutes of polls closing.

Mailed ballots are only accepted until 7:00 pm on Election Night (as opposed to days or even a week later in other states), and clerks have had little trouble getting everything counted on time.

The only concern critics of Florida’s election model have voiced is the possibility that an unscrupulous election worker could leak results from the early vote as they come in. Doing so is a felony, however, and in more than 20 years there is no evidence that it has ever happened.

There is also no reason that Florida’s highly successful model cannot be adopted by other states, including Wisconsin. A good first step would be for the incoming Wisconsin Senate to pass an Assembly bill that would allow the state’s clerks to process absentee votes the day before Election Day.

The measure cleared the Assembly on a voice vote a year ago, but it died in the Senate a few months later when Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu—one of the bill’s original authors—pulled it amid backlash from fellow Republicans.

Their concerns were nearly identical to those in Florida—that results might leak, and election thieves would know exactly how many ballots they would need to manufacture. Votes would not be counted for two weeks in Wisconsin, however, or even a single day.

In fact, as currently written, the bill would simply allow clerks and their staffs to get the ballots ready for counting on Election Day. From 7:00 am to 8:00 pm on the Monday before Election Day, they would be able to open the ballot envelopes, assign each ballot a number, and then run them through tabulators, where they would sit until the votes are physically tallied once the polls close on Election Night.

Such early processing would be required for cities like Milwaukee that use a Central Count facility, but other municipalities would be permitted to process early as well. If the Senate passes the bill, which Governor Tony Evers has indicated he would sign, then Wisconsin would join 38 other states in allowing for or requiring early processing.

This would be a good start, but for Wisconsin to fully restore faith in the integrity of its electoral process, it must adopt more facets of the Florida plan. All absentee votes must be processed by 8:00 pm the day before Election Day. All results must be calculated and posted within 30 minutes of polls closing on Election Day. And leaking or attempting to obtain vote totals before the polls close must be classified as a felony and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Voters will once again know before they wake up the next morning who their next senator or governor will be, as the now-expected 4:00 am ballot dumps will be nothing but a bad memory. Republicans will no longer expect them and expect to lose because of them. And, most importantly, Wisconsin can again have faith in elections where ballots are processed and tabulated in broad daylight and in full view of observers and attorneys instead of under cover of darkness in the wee hours of the morning.