- [Zac Schultz] The COVID-19 pandemic has up-ended Wisconsin's
spring election the way no candidate ever could.
- Hello. - Donald Trump has been forced
to cancel planned appearances in the state.
- �Sanders] Hello, everybody.
- While presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders
have shifted to online rallies.
- We have to balance and simultaneously achieve
the goals of keeping Wisconsin healthy
and making sure we get out and vote
for Jill for justice.
- Republicans and Democrats have ended
their door-to-door get out to vote operations.
- At the Democratic Party of Wisconsin,
we are undertaking an unprecedented,
state-wide, field-organizing operation
that will take place entirely online.
- Because of all the virus stuff, I thought,
might as well take advantage of how easy it is.
I work downtown.
- So far, visitors are listening.
Absentee voting has been gaining in popularity
in recent years, but the number of people
requesting absentee ballots by mail
for this election has skyrocketed.
- [Verbick] We had a very significant spike.
- [Narrator] Jim Verbick is deputy clerk
for the city of Madison
and says they've called in volunteers
from other city agencies to process ballot requests
at a rate of 360 an hour.
- [Verbick] We're getting a lot of help
from other city agencies.
It's been all-hands-on-deck.
- Verbick says they've seen two big spikes
in absentee by mail requests:
one when the World Health Organization
declared COVID-19 a pandemic
and the second after this.
- As Secretary Paul mentioned,
I directed her to order a state-wide moratorium
on mass gatherings of 10 people or more.
- We were doing about 5,600 absentee applications
sitting in our inbox, and then starting last night,
that was when we crossed the 10,000 threshold.
That was a very significant spike.
- People are also voting early in person,
risking the crowds here
in order to avoid crowds on election day.
- We would get out and do it now
so that we wouldn't be standing in huge crowds.
In fact, we decided we would come here
and see if there was a huge crowd here,
and then maybe we would wait until tomorrow.
- [Astrella] Already this morning,
we have had a few people come in to vote.
- The concerns are the same in rural Wisconsin.
- [Astrella] We ask them before we even interact with them,
"Please wash your hands or sanitize them."
- Chris Astrella is the clerk
of the town of Oakland in Jefferson County.
- This morning actually in my email inbox,
I had 39 requests for absentee ballots
through the mail.
Normally, I would get that in a week or two.
- Astrella is one half of a staff of two
and worries what will happen if they get sick.
- If we have to shut the office down
for a couple of weeks because both of us
have to self-quarantine,
virtually nothing would get done.
- The bigger concern is what happens on election day.
The city of Madison
has had to find new polling locations.
- We've had a significant number of our polling places
say that they can't have us on election day:
the Madison schools, care facilities.
- Poll workers across the state tend to be older
and in the high-risk category for COVID-19.
- It is something that I'm concerned about.
If we have enough election workers drop out,
I'm not 100% sure how we're gonna handle it.
- Reporting from Madison,
I'm Zac Schultz for Here and Now.