Sen. Russ Feingold visited the UW-Madison campus Wednesday in an effort to encourage people to vote early for the Nov. 2 general election.
“Voting early is simple and easy, and Wisconsin voters can start making their voices heard by voting today,” Feingold said in a statement.
Early voting is performed via absentee ballots, which any registered voter can fill out and turn in instead of going to vote on Election Day, according to the Government Accountability Board.
Feingold spoke at UW, in part, to get students to vote. According to the GAB, there are nearly 40,000 registered voters between 18 and 24 years old in Dane County.
Feingold sees absentee voting as a way to improve the voting process and increase voter turnout, Feingold spokesperson John Kraus said.
Kraus said if more Wisconsinites vote early, then more people will be freed up to get out the vote.
Kraus added getting people to vote early is part of a larger effort by the Feingold campaign to motivate young people to vote.
“[We plan on] going to campuses around the state and appealing directly to college students who have always been a strong base of support to Sen. Feingold,” Kraus said. “It is important for young voters to get out and vote like they did in 2008.”
In addition to his stop at Library Mall on Wednesday, Feingold is holding rallies in cities across the state this week, including Racine, Appleton, Oshkosh and Stevens Point, as part of the effort to get people to vote early.
The Feingold campaign has also started a website where people can register to vote, find their early voting location, locate their City Clerk and learn how to get an absentee ballot sent to them.
Early voting, which officially opened on Monday, is fairly common in the state of Wisconsin.
“In 2008, 21 percent of the voters cast absentee ballots,” Reid Magney, spokesman for the GAB, said. “Some are doing it because they are overseas or in Florida, and some are doing it out of convenience.”
Absentee ballots filed early have been permitted to everyone regardless of circumstances since the year 2000, Magney added.
According to the City of Madison’s Clerk Office, 29,000 absentee ballots were filled out in 2008 while an additional 3,000 ballots were completed but did not arrive in time to be counted.
Absentee ballots can be obtained through the mail or via e-mail, as well as in person at the City Clerk’s office. The ballot must be completed at the clerk’s office that day and can be completed up to one day before the election on Nov. 2.
Anyone who does not complete the ballot at the clerk’s office will have until before the polls close on Election Day to turn it in to the City Clerk, according to the GAB.
Feingold maintains early voting will have an impact in deciding the election come November.
“Wisconsin voters will decide this election – not skewed polls, not the negative television attack ads and not the corporate special interests in Washington,” Feingold said in the statement.
