Elections Commission: Half of Wisconsin early voting done in person

MADISON -- More than half of the absentee ballots cast in Wisconsin so far have been done in person.

New figures released Friday by the state Elections Commission show that 70,740 absentee ballots have been cast across the state. Nearly a third of those have come from the heavily Democratic counties of Milwaukee and Dane, fueling confidence in Hillary Clinton and Senate candidate Russ Feingold's campaigns.

However, in-person absentee voting hasn't begun everywhere around the state. Both Milwaukee and Madison opened polling stations for early voting on Sept. 26. Many more locations in both Democratic and Republican strongholds were to open in coming weeks.

A federal court ruling threw out a state law that had limited in-person early voting to the two weeks prior to the election.

As of Friday, about 38,800 in-person absentee ballots had been cast out of the 70,740 total.