What Went Wrong in the Wisconsin Election, and What We Can Learn From It Before November

https://time.com/5818773/wisconsin-coronavirus-elections/

Watching it unfold, it was impossible not to wonder: Is this what we’re all in for in November? Both national parties treated the Wisconsin situation as a test case for their arguments about how voting should take place during the coronavirus pandemic — and how that might benefit them as they look ahead to this fall’s high-stakes presidential election. The factors that created the mess—bitter partisanship, a dysfunctional and poorly funded patchwork of different election systems and the win-at-all-costs ethos of Trumpism, all overlaid with an unprecedented public-health emergency of unknown duration—are all national in scope. “Wisconsin’s in-person vote, held in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, is unconscionable, and portends major problems for the November election should the pandemic recur in the fall,” says Adam Hilton, a political scientist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.