The State Is Mailing Postcards To 198,000 Unregistered Voters

The postcards are scheduled to arrive within the next week and should not be confused with the absentee ballot request forms that will arrive in September. 

A patriotic-looking postcard from the Wisconsin Elections Commission is on its way this week to roughly 198,600 state residents who are able to vote but have yet to register. 

The postcards provide information for voters to register online at https://myvote.wi.gov or by calling a toll-free number for the Wisconsin Elections Commision’s call center.  

“Many groups are contacting Wisconsin residents in 2020 about registration and voting,” said Meagan Wolfe, administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. “Voters can trust that this postcard and other official mailings from the WEC contain accurate, nonpartisan information about how and when they can register and vote in Wisconsin.”

This postcard mailing is different from another WEC mailing that has been in the news recently.  

In early September, approximately 2.64 million Wisconsin registered voters will be receiving a mailer with information about all three ways they can vote in the November 3 election, including at the polls on Election Day, in-person absentee at their clerk’s office, or absentee by mail.  

The September mailing will include information about how to request an absentee ballot be mailed to you by visiting https://myvote.wi.gov, but it will also contain an absentee ballot request form and business return mail envelope for use by voters who do not have internet access.

The upcoming mailing to the 198,600 eligible but unregistered voters will feature intelligent mail barcodes for the first time, Wolfe said.  

“This will serve as a ‘pilot’ mailing for the use of intelligent mail barcodes, which the WEC is building into the statewide voter system for mailing absentee ballots this fall,” Wolfe said. “The barcodes will give us detailed information on undeliverable mailings and other delivery statistics.”

The state sends out the registration postcards because of Wisconsin’s membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center, a system that helps states improve the accuracy of the country’s voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens.  

Wisconsin sent similar postcard mailings to 1.28 million eligible but unregistered residents in 2016 and 384,000 residents in 2018.