Wisconsin voters go to the polls Tuesday to vote on a constitutional amendment that would change the distribution of federal funds that benefit Wisconsin and to nominate partisan candidates for the state’s Congress and Legislature.

In southwestern and western Wisconsin, voters in the Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District will decide which of three rivals will face first-term U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Prairie du Chien) in November.

The three Democratic candidates are state Rep. Katrina Shankland (D-Stevens Point), small business owner and unsuccessful candidate in the 2022 Democratic primary Rebecca Cooke, and Eric Wilson of Eau Claire, a Democratic Party activist.

Republican voters in the Fox Valley will nominate a candidate in the primary election to run for the vacant 8th Congressional District seat in November. The three candidates vying for the nomination are state Sen. Andre Jacque (R-De Pere), former state Sen. Roger Roth and businessman Tony Wied, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in this year’s presidential race.

Tuesday’s winner will face Democrat Kristin Lyerly, a gynecologist and reproductive rights advocate, in November.

The 8th District seat was held by Republican Mike Gallagher, who was elected in 2016 and resigned in April after previously announcing he would not seek re-election this year. Because of the timing of his resignation, a special election was not required under Wisconsin law.

Republican voters across the state will choose a candidate to run against Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is seeking her third term. Eric Hovde, owner and CEO of Sunwest Bank in California, will face two little-known candidates vying for the Republican nomination: Rejani Raveendran, a Republican student leader and single mother from Stevens Point, and Charles Barman, a construction manager from the village of Sharon in Walworth County.

Hovde has already received the endorsement of the Wisconsin Republican Party, and his campaign advertising focuses on Baldwin and the general election rather than his rivals in the primary. Likewise, Baldwin’s campaign message implicitly assumes that Hovde will be the Republican in the November election.

Restructuring the legislature

Tuesday will also mark the first primary election under the new apportionment of Wisconsin’s legislative seats, after the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared the previous apportionments approved in 2022 unconstitutional.

The new maps include many House and Senate districts where the Republican-Democratic split is more evenly balanced, and there are many more districts where Democrats appear to have a slight advantage based on past election results than in the previous maps.

In total, there are 46 primaries for the legislative assembly across the state, with Democrats selecting their candidates in 21 cases and Republicans in 25.

The state Senate is holding Democratic primaries for two open seats, in Milwaukee and Madison. Incumbent representatives are competing in both primaries.

There are also Republican primaries for two Senate seats. One in the Fox Valley will feature two political newcomers. The other, in central-eastern Wisconsin between the Fox Valley and the northern suburbs of Milwaukee, will feature an incumbent against a former state legislator.

Questions about constitutional amendment

On ballots across the state, voters will be asked two questions about a proposed constitutional amendment that would strip the governor of control over federal funds flowing to the state.

Under current state law, the governor has sole control over the distribution of federal funds that are not part of the regular state budget. A question on the ballot would strip the governor’s office of that power and require legislative approval of all money that flows through state government. Another question would ask voters to prohibit the legislature from delegating its spending authority.

Voter ratification via referendum is the final step in passing a constitutional amendment in Wisconsin and occurs after the bill has been passed by the House in two consecutive two-year legislative sessions.

Since Evers took office in 2019, the Republican majority in the legislature has passed, and voters have approved, constitutional amendments that expand the rights of crime victims, allow judges to consider previous convictions when setting bail for suspects, and declare that local election officials cannot accept outside funds or hire private companies to administer elections.

Each of these amendments was passed despite limited opposition campaigns. However, opposition to the issue of government spending is much more prominent than in recent amendment campaigns.

Several groups aligned with the Republican majority in the House have been lobbying for yes votes on both issues, while a variety of bipartisan groups and Democratic-aligned organizations have launched campaigns to vote no on the measures.

The last time Wisconsin voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment was in 2018. The proposal would have abolished the elected office of state treasurer.

Early voting, voter turnout expectations

Early voting and absentee voting turnout in this August’s primary election is keeping pace with turnout in the August 2022 primary, when a contested Republican primary for governor was on the ballot.

According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, as of August 9, 2022, the Monday before Election Day, 388,843 mail-in ballots had been requested and 277,951 had been returned. Another 63,169 people had voted early in person.

This year, 387,280 mail-in ballots had been requested and 288,021 returned as of Monday morning. In addition, 92,171 people cast their early ballots in person.

Both races are far behind the August 2020 primaries, when 903,760 absentee ballots were requested and 506,709 returned by the Monday before the election.

2020 was also the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered a significant increase in mail-in voting. (The 2020 WEC data does not include in-person mail-in voting.)

But despite the increase in early voting in 2020, overall turnout was higher in the 2022 primary, with 1,229,501 votes cast in this partisan primary, compared to 957,197 votes in 2020, when there were no statewide offices on the ballot.

At a press conference Monday afternoon, WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe said the agency did not know how many votes would be cast Tuesday, but turnout in the August primary ranged from just 9 percent of eligible voters in 2008 to 27 percent in 2022.

“Turnout in these types of elections typically seems to be between 15 and 25 percent,” she said.

Security concerns

Since the 2020 presidential election, Wisconsin has been at the center of conspiracy theories about election administration. This year, there have been several court battles over access to polling places and the methods voters can use to cast mail-in ballots.

During a special election for the 4th Senate District in July, police were called to polling stations in the Milwaukee suburb Glendale after a number of prominent election conspiracy theorists went to polling places as observers and began challenging every mail-in ballot that was counted. After leaving the polling places, the election deniers promised to return at the next election in the fall.

At Monday’s press conference, Wolfe said that dialogue with election observers is a topic on which election officials have been repeatedly trained over the past four years.

“This is something that is now really ingrained in the training of local election officials … to ensure that the returning officer is aware of his powers in terms of running the polling station and that he knows how to respond if someone causes a disturbance and to involve the police if necessary.”

After Trump’s attempt to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, there are fears that he could make a similar attempt again this year with the help of allies in the nationwide panels responsible for certifying the results.

On Monday, the election nonprofit All Voting is Local warned that any officials who refuse to certify elections would be violating the law.

“Refusing to certify an election goes against the job description of election officials and their responsibility to the voters in their district,” Sam Liebert, Wisconsin director of All Voting is Local, said in a statement. “In addition, delaying or refusing to certify current and future elections based on unfounded allegations further undermines trust in the system and opens the possibility of election sabotage. We must not normalize these egregious acts or fuel anti-voter conspiracy theories, especially during the 2024 election cycle.”