Wisconsin Primary Results to Be Made Public Monday Night

WASHINGTON – The results of Wisconsin’s chaotic April 7 primary will be released Monday evening, immediately after local boards of election across the state finish counting the record 1.3 million absentee ballots cast.

Despite widespread fears caused by the coronavirus outbreak and a series of late legal challenges, Wisconsin opted to go ahead with its primary, a decision that resulted in an explosion in absentee balloting and scenes of long lines of voters making the evening news across the county.

Although the results are expected to have little meaning in the presidential race, with former Vice President Joe Biden already the presumptive nominee, there were thousands of state and local officers on the Wisconsin ballot.

Perhaps the race with the highest stakes was the state Supreme Court contest between Dan Kelly, the conservative incumbent endorsed by President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, Jill Karofsky.

If Karofsky were to win, it would break the GOP strangle-hold on the court, with profound implications for future voting rights and redistricting cases in the state.

It could also alter the outcome of a case now before the state Supreme Court that seeks to purge more than 200,000 people from Wisconsin’s voter rolls.

Concerns over the outcome of the race were one of the prime motivating factors behind the legal challenges that kept the status of the primary very much in doubt until the last minute.

Wisconsin Gov. Tom Evers had cancelled the primary, hoping to push it back to June, but Republican legislators challenged his decision, saying it could lead to voter fraud and other issues.

Democrats countered by arguing Republicans were primarily motivated to keep down turnout in the Supreme Court race, particularly in Democratic-dominated urban areas such as Milwaukee, where a lack of workers meant the closure of all but five of the city’s usual 180 polling places.