Greenfield resident Nereida Loma said she requested a mail ballot but never received it, and city officials had no record of her application. She went to City Hall in the Milwaukee suburb to cast an in-person absentee ballot and said she plans to vote in person in the future.

“When you put it in the mail, you don’t know if it’s going to count — if it’s going to come or not,” Loma said.

Her experience comes as Wisconsin voters have requested about 20% fewer mail ballots than at this point before the November 2022 election. Of the ballots sent out so far, 51.5% had been returned as of two weeks before the election, compared with 55.5% at the same point in 2022. The return rate was lower in 63 of the state’s 72 counties.

Election officials had received about 191,000 absentee ballots by that point, down from nearly 259,000 in 2022. The number of ballots sent to voters fell from 466,000 to 372,000.

The numbers reflect more than one factor, said Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor. Some voters are more comfortable voting in person now that the pandemic-era surge in mail voting has passed, he said, while trust in the U.S. Postal Service has also declined.

An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll cited in the election coverage found that 58% of Americans were confident election mail would arrive on time, down from 71% two years earlier. The Postal Service did not respond to a request for comment.

Wisconsin’s first day of early voting was Oct. 20. In New Berlin, City Clerk Rubina Medina said her office was receiving 25 to 30 mail-ballot requests a day, compared with 75 to 100 in past elections. In-person absentee voting, however, appeared about as busy as usual on the first day, she said.

Medina said voters frequently tell her they do not trust the mail. While she considers some of that distrust unwarranted, she said delivery takes longer than it once did. Her office now encourages voters to mail ballots back two weeks before Election Day, rather than the week before.

Other voters said they prefer voting in person for convenience or because they doubt mail delivery. Milwaukee voter Shan Nelson-Rowe said he finds in-person absentee voting simpler than mailing a ballot and quicker than voting on Election Day. He said a neighbor who usually mails back a ballot plans to use a drop box instead.

Election officials are also seeing voters choose to return ballots themselves. Milwaukee election chief Paulina Gutiérrez said more voters in recent elections have dropped off ballots on Election Day, citing concerns about the mail. Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood and Sheboygan County Clerk Jon Dolson expect some voters who requested mail ballots to ultimately vote in person.

Mail delays have affected some voters directly. Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said his son, who is studying in Ireland, requested a ballot in September. It was sent in late September but had not arrived by the time McDonell spoke about it.

Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe said officials have heard widespread concern about delays. She urged voters who plan to return ballots by mail to send them as early as possible, recommending at least two weeks before the election.

The lower absentee totals also follow changes to Wisconsin’s permanent absentee-voter list and a series of high-profile ballot administration problems around the state, Burden said. Together, the figures and voters’ accounts point to a changing mix of voting methods — and the importance of leaving enough time for ballots to be delivered and processed.