Each week, we bring you a collection of the most viewed stories from The Daily Brew, condensed. Here are the top stories from the week of April 13th - April 17th.
Updates on stories related to the coronavirus outbreak are current through Monday afternoon. Click here for the latest news.
   
Wisconsin voters request most absentee ballots in nearly a decade
This year, Wisconsin voters requested 1.29 million absentee ballots—the most since at least 2012.
For an absentee ballot to be valid, Wisconsin law requires that the voter sign a certificate in the ballot envelope. A witness must be present for completion of the ballot and also must provide their signature. A ballot that does not meet these requirements may be rejected. A ballot is not considered rejected if it was not delivered to the voter on time or if it was not returned on time. An absentee ballot is considered to be canceled rather than rejected if a voter is ruled ineligible or votes in-person.
Welcome to Ballotpedia Class
Most in-person classes remain closed, and many students have moved to online-learning activities. We're offering a virtual class series to supplement those existing programs.
This week we began our three-part lecture series designed for high school students. Students or teachers can sign up for these 45-minute lectures on government and civics by Ballotpedia's experts. This isn’t just a lecture, students will be encouraged to join discussions and ask questions.
We're covering a variety of topics, with two classes remaining this month:
- April 23rd - Introduction to Campaign Finance Law (12:00 p.m. Central Time)
- April 30th - How States Select Their Supreme Court Justices (1:00 p.m. Central Time)
Register for any or all of the lectures by clicking the link below.
In states where the filing deadlines have passed, 20 U.S. House districts have just one major-party candidate
The candidate filing deadline to run for federal office has passed in 34 states. In those states where the filing deadlines have already passed, eight U.S. House districts do not have a Democratic candidate and 12 do not have a Republican candidate. There are five such districts in New York and three in Alabama. Colorado and Illinois have two each.
Looking back at the last elections held during a pandemic
This isn’t the world’s first pandemic. The United States held midterm elections in 1918 during the Spanish Flu pandemic, one of the most severe in history. As part of our coverage of the coronavirus outbreak, we're occasionally looking back at a story from the 1918 elections to see how America met the challenges of holding elections during a national health emergency.
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