more as nation battles coronavirus wisconsin election forges on with inperson voting the delays were due in part to nearly 60 of wisconsin municipalities reporting a shortage of election volunteers and 111 jurisdictions reporting they could not staff even one polling place milwaukee the states largest city only had five polling locations instead of the 180 that historically operate on election day days after inperson voting the problems were not over state election officials were still grappling with two separate issues with absentee ballots scores of missing ones that were never delivered were found at mailing centers and guiding local clerks who were struggling to figure out which ballots to count after some absentee ballots were returned without postmarks the day after the election results from the contest werent released until a week after the election democratic national committee chair tom perez called the election in the pivotal midwestern state voter suppression on steroids four years ago donald trump carried the badger state the first republican to do so in over 30 years by only about 23000 votes or less than one percentage point wisconsin has become the first test case for other states that are seeking to navigate the uncharted terrain of running elections during a pandemic one gift we were given is wisconsin south dakota secretary of state steve barnett a republican told abc news just before the states june 2 primary they werent able to model after anybody else we were all on the sidelines kind of watching them this room processes all absentee ballots that are returned from other precincts in this hub in miami dade country in florida nov 2 2012 michele sandbergcorbis via getty images state election officials in wisconsin are now aiming to minimize their mistakes for the general election in a postmortem summary written by the states elections commission the officials examined the problems surrounding the spring election and outlined lessons learned for the coming months among the changes the commission noted is tracking absentee ballots throughout the votebymail process through barcodes to avoid more missing ballots a few weeks before wisconsin ohio was initially scheduled to hold its primary in midmarch but due to eleventhhour legal challenges and a unilateral decision by the states health department inperson voting was shut down and the election was postponed until three weeks after wisconsin more more time would have been helpful ohio election officials face ballot issues due to postal service delays even in the days leading up to the late april primary the quick transition to an allmail election hit some hiccups when delays with the postal service left some voters without an absentee ballot and no recourse to make sure their vote was counted while elections officials largely agreed with republican gov mike dewines decision to shutter inperson polling sites during the outbreak they worried that the state legislatures tight timeline to administer an allmail election was too lofty a goal at this point theres really nothing that can be done