There’s less than two weeks until Election Day, but in the meantime, early voting begins in Wisconsin. On Tuesday October 22nd, the Douglas County Wisconsin Democrats kicked off the start of early in-person voting. As poll workers start the preparations of counting votes, there’s more ballot access in Superior.

Superior Mayor Jim Paine says back in 2020 there was only one absentee ballot drop box. However, this presidential election there’s not one, not two, but three drop boxes located throughout the city of Superior.

“The law has changed quite a bit since 2020. They were declared illegal, then they were declared legal again. In 2020, we only had a drop-box out here. And a lot of that was largely just adapting to the pandemic. We were moving very quickly to try and make sure people could still vote while maintaining social distancing and not getting sick. But now, it’s just about access.”

There’s an estimated 3-point-5 million registered voters in the state of Wisconsin. According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, but that number is expected to grow the closer we get to Election Day.

“Nobody else is going to build your country for you. You have to do that yourselves. The only way to do that is to come in and vote,” Paine said. “If you go and vote, whether it’s in person here in the next two weeks or on Election Day, please, please, please thank those poll workers. They are nothing short of the sentinels of democracy.”

Absentee ballot drop boxes can be found at the Government Center Building, the Richard I. Bong Center and the Superior Fire Department Headquarters.

Dawn Bacon, a deputy clerk with the city of Superior, says voters should make a plan to vote. Whether its through the mail, casting your ballot early, or voting on Election Day.

“It’s going to be busy. It’s going to be very busy, so plan ahead. There may be longer lines depending on what poll location you’re at, especially on election day,” Bacon said. “In here, we’re doing the early voting in 270, and so far today it hasn’t been too crazy. So just make sure that you know that you might have a little bit of a wait, but otherwise it should be a good time.”

More than 240,000 absentee ballots had been returned so far this election season. According to the Wisconsin Election Commission those numbers are slightly more than one-third of the 700,000 absentee votes that were returned at this point in 2020.

“When you come to either the early voting or your poll site, you want to make sure you have a photo ID. You can register both in person up until election day, including the day of. Here at the Government Center, we are doing early voting from starting today until November 1st, which is next Friday, and we will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 30 p.m. every day.”

Mayor Paine says voters in Superior can still request an absentee ballot to be mailed to their home and have enough time for their vote to be counted this election. Also for more information about where your polling location is in Wisconsin you can look online here.