With more than a week of early voting left in the City of Madison, a new record for the number of absentee ballots issued and returned has already been broken.
As of Tuesday, the City Clerk had issued a total of 35,497 absentee ballots and had 31,421 returned to be counted, shattering the previous records of 32,012 issued in 2008 and 29,199 returned in 2012.
The city has also established another new record with 26,527 absentee ballots cast in person at early voting locations. The previous high was 18,752 ballots cast in person in 2012.
"I would not be surprised if we had 40,000 absentee ballots cast in person," said City of Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl.