MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) – Wisconsin Republicans will propose a plan to process absentee ballots before Election Night to avoid late-night tallies and rules for drop boxes, according to the state representative behind it.

Republican Rep. Scott Krug, Assembly assistant majority leader and vice chair of the Assembly Elections Committee, plans to introduce the bills this week. He said four bills in the package aim to secure and maintain elections in Wisconsin.

“We always know Wisconsin elections are super close. Whichever side loses has always got some complaints about the process. We are looking for bipartisan solutions to figure out a way to get rid of those arguments,” Krug said. “All four of these bills kind of reach the standard that President Trump has laid out about more security, safety, making sure we know who is voting and where, but they do stop short of some of the things the federal government has said about no machine voting and no absentee ballots by mail.”

Processing Absentee Ballots one day early

For years, clerks have asked lawmakers to change the law to allow them to count absentee ballots before 7 a.m. on Election Day. The most recent attempt at a bill similar to this received support from Milwaukee leaders and election officials but failed to make it out of the Senate. 

“To run it again as a stand-alone bill probably doesn’t make any sense, so to try to take that and put it together with some other things, I think will entice the state Senate to get more involved in this process now,” Krug said.

Under a bill proposed by Krug, it would require the count to begin the day before an election. Krug said the bill would be especially beneficial to Milwaukee, which as the state's biggest city, has the most absentee ballots to process.

“It would give an extra day to process those ballots and get them into machines to make sure people by the end of the day know who won the election before they went to bed,” Krug said.

Since the 2020 presidential election, President Donald Trump has continued to falsely state the late-night reporting of absentee ballot results in Milwaukee was a sign of fraud.

“The sheer number of absentee ballots since Covid-19 are just through the roof, and we just don’t have time to process them all in one day,” Krug said.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 39 states currently allow clerks to begin processing absentee ballots before Election Day.

Drop-box rules

Absentee ballot drop boxes are a major focus of big political and legal fights in Wisconsin.

Trump falsely claimed that drop boxes were a source of fraud during the 2020 presidential election. He also recently endorsed “one-day voting” by “paper ballot” during rallies in Wisconsin.

There is no Wisconsin law that defines the use of drop boxes, which is why in 2022, the court ruled that drop boxes placed anywhere except for the election clerk’s office were illegal – resulting in a nearly total ban. Drop boxes were re-instated in 2024

“I just think it’s time the legislature steps in,” Krug said. “I think Covid exposed some holes, I think there are things we have to figure out how to fix.”

The changes include 24-hour surveillance video of each drop box that must be livestreamed on each municipalities website, among other ways to ensure security.