Wisconsin is voting. Here's what to know about voting and ballot access in 2022

Wisconsin voters began casting their ballots in the 2022 midterm elections early and in person for key statewide races starting Oct. 25.

The race for governor is a toss-up between incumbent Gov. Tony Evers and Republican challenger Tim Michels while U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson appears to have a slight lead — within the margin of error — over Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes.

In recent months, Wisconsin's voting laws have changed with state Supreme Court rulings altering how people can cast absentee ballots and how local election clerks can handle them.

The latest on voting rights, ballot access in Wisconsin

After President Donald Trump's 2020 loss to President Joe Biden by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers spent months pushing for tighter voting rules. The following were enacted this year:

• The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled, 4-3, that absentee ballot drop boxes were illegal, in a case brought by a conservative law firm challenging guidance from state election commissioners permitting their use. Hundreds of absentee drop boxes were installed across Wisconsin in 2020 to help voters cast their ballots without interacting with other people during the pandemic. More than 40% of all votes cast that year were through absentee ballots. Wisconsin law now mandates voters to place their absentee ballots in the mail, only making exceptions for the ballots of individuals who are disabled to have someone place their ballot in the mail for them. Ballot drop boxes are still allowed in election clerk offices.

• A lower court ruled local election clerks can no longer fill in missing address information on witness certification envelopes that contain absentee ballots. The practice, known as ballot curing, was unchallenged in Wisconsin until after Trump's loss.

• The state law enacted in 2018 that only allows clerks to start counting absentee ballots starting at 7 a.m. on Election Day remains. Earlier this year, legislation that would have allowed absentee ballots to be counted the day before died in the state Senate. The rule on counting has been attributed to the emergence of late results from Democratic-leaning larger cities with high volumes of ballots.

What changes could be ahead?

• In October, a Wisconsin judge ruled voters could not cancel their original absentee ballot and cast a new one and that the practice, known as ballot spoiling, is illegal. The Wisconsin Elections Commission filed an appeal, prompting the Wisconsin appeals court to put the lower court's ruling on hold. At the time about 110,000 absentee ballots had already been returned and 400,000 had already been requested. The issue will likely be revisited after the Nov. 8 election.

• Michels says if he is elected governor he wants to eliminate the Wisconsin Elections Commission and repeal all previous commission election guidance. He has also said he would prohibit the re-hiring of any commission staff that participated in the issuance of any formal guidance that "failed to comply with existing law, as has been determined by the Legislative Audit Bureau."

Why it matters

The U.S. Senate race between Johnson and Barnes is one that could help determine which party controls the body for the next two years. Johnson has been targeted as a vulnerable incumbent Republican in a state Biden carried but is seen as having taken the lead in what is still expected to be a tight race.

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Democrats hold every statewide elected state office while Republicans hold commanding majorities in both houses of the legislature. A loss by Evers would put Republicans in complete control of state government while an Evers win would keep intact divided government. Republicans are also within reach of achieving veto-proof majorities in the legislature that would blunt Evers' ability to block their agenda as he has done for much of the past four years, vetoing nearly 150 bills. Republicans have vowed to bring those measures back, including several aimed at changing election laws, if Michels takes the governor's race.

►More:A guide to voter rights in Wisconsin.

►More:Wisconsin historically ahead of the curve in voting access

Here's the lineup of contested statewide races in Wisconsin:

• Governor: Tony Evers (Democrat) Incumbent (running mate Sara Rodriguez)/Tim Michels (Republican, running mate Roger Roth)

• United States Senator: Ron Johnson (Republican) Incumbent/ Mandela Barnes (Democrat)

• Attorney General: Josh Kaul (Democrat) Incumbent/Eric Toney (Republican)

• Secretary of State: Doug La Follette (Democrat) Incumbent/Amy Loudenbeck (Republican)

• State Treasurer: Aaron Richardson (Democrat)/John S. Leiber (Republican)

For more information go to myvote.wi.gov's "Vote Absentee by Mail" page.

What they are saying

• The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter still rates the Johnson/Barnes Senate race a toss-up. "In Wisconsin, they've got to energize the base," said Jessica Taylor, the Cook Report's Senate and Governors Editor. "There are just so few swing voters and the state is so evenly divided. That has factored into the rating."

• On polling showing Johnson closing a previous gap with Barnes and moving into the lead: "We've seen the effect of the campaign, the negative ads, and we've seen that move over three samples from August to September to October," Marquette poll director Charles Franklin said. "There has been a pretty clear trend."

• On the governor's race, poll director Franklin: "every indicator is it's a close toss-up."

Want to know more? Here's what you may have missed

• President Joe Biden's support is especially soft with young voters and voters of color, and these groups may be the two biggest turnout concerns for Democrats in Wisconsin this year, and polling shows enthusiasm for voting is lagging among those groups. In geographic terms, it appears to be lagging in the city of Milwaukee, where election turnout is always vital for Democrats in tight races, columnist Craig Gilbert writes.

• Could the two major parties split Wisconsin's big races for governor and U.S. Senate? More from Gilbert: "The norm in this state for more than two decades has been for one party to sweep the top election contests on the same ballot, whether it’s a good year for Democrats (2018, 2012) or a good one for Republicans (2016, 2010). But in the last two polls by Marquette Law School, Democratic incumbent Tony Evers has led the race for governor and Republican incumbent Ron Johnson has led the race for U.S. Senate. While some of those leads have been tiny, the polling suggests that a partisan split at the top of the ticket this year is a very real possibility.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Wisconsin elections: What to know about voting, ballot access in 2022