Absentee Ballot Trends Vary Across Five States

Absentee voting has seen differing trends and challenges across states ahead of the 2026 elections. Wisconsin absentee-ballot requests are down 18% compared with the last gubernatorial election, while Michigan reports more than 201,000 ballots returned—up 30% from the same point in 2022—and a rise in requests. In Georgia, election officials clarified that mailings some voters mistook for ballots were third-party applications, not ballots. Yankton County, South Dakota, briefly suspended absentee voting after a typographical error on its ballot before resuming it. Alaska’s August primary saw 3.4% of absentee ballots rejected, often for late postmarks, with especially high rejection rates and delivery delays in some rural communities.