In-person voting begins in key US state of Wisconsin

In-person early voting is under way across Wisconsin, a key battleground state in the US presidential election.

Former president Barack Obama and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz hosted a rally in the city of Madison while Republicans are staging events to encourage support for Republican White House candidate Donald Trump.

Mr Trump lost Wisconsin by just under 21,000 votes in 2020, an election that saw unprecedented early and absentee voting due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

He and Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, are expecting another razor-thin margin in the state and both sides are pushing voters to cast their ballots early.

Dozens of people waited in line outside Milwaukee's municipal building for the start of early voting at 9am (3pm Irish time). Hours and locations for early voting vary across the state.

Mr Trump was highly critical of postal voting in past elections, falsely claiming it was rife with fraud.

However, this time, he and his backers are embracing all forms of ballot casting.

The former president encouraged early voting at a rally in Dodge County, Wisconsin, earlier this month.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming said the vote-early message from Mr Trump and Republicans this year has been "very clear".

Mr Schimming even put in a plug for using absentee ballot drop boxes, a method of returning ballots that Mr Trump once opposed and that Republicans in Wisconsin still do.

"We need to avail ourselves of every imaginable way to get votes in," Mr Schimming said.

"If it's the difference between getting a vote in, or not getting a vote in, I say to Republicans: 'Put it in the mailbox or put it in the drop box'."

Numerous Republican office-holders and candidates plan to cast their ballots early.

"You never know when a snowstorm is going to come in November in Wisconsin," said US Representative Bryan Steil.

"It’s a great opportunity while the weather’s nice to get out to your local office and cast your vote and have that vote banked."

Mr Obama and Mr Walz, the governor of neighbouring Minnesota, scheduled an early voting rally in the Democratic stronghold of Madison.

Ms Harris held a rally at the same venue last month, attracting more than 10,000 people.

Mr Obama heads to neighbouring Michigan later today, among the several stops the former president is making in battleground states to encourage early voting.

Ms Harris has been spending a lot of time in the "blue wall" states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in the final weeks of the campaign, including stops in Michigan and Wisconsin yesterday.

Mr Vance was in the conservative Milwaukee suburbs on Sunday.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party is also staging events across Wisconsin to encourage early voting, as are liberal advocacy groups, including Souls to the Polls, a Milwaukee-based organisation that targets black voters.

This is a key demographic for Democrats in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city and also the source of the highest number of Democratic votes.

Early voting in Wisconsin runs until Sunday week, 3 November. People do not need to give a reason for doing so.

They can request a ballot paper at designated locations and cast their vote in person.

As of Friday, more than 305,000 absentee ballots had been returned in Wisconsin.

Voters can continue to return the paper by post, in person, or at absentee drop boxes.

All absentee ballots must be received by the time polls close at 8pm on election day, Tuesday 5 November.

Ms Harris and Mr Trump have continued to deliver radically different messages while on the campaign trail.

The vice president, campaigning alongside former Republican politician Liz Cheney in battleground states, argued that Mr Trump was a threat to democracy.

She has been sharpening her attacks on his fitness for office, often calling him "unstable" or "unhinged" and questioning his temperament.

"In many, many ways Donald Trump is an unserious man, but the consequences of him being president of the United States are brutally serious," Ms Harris said at an event in Pennsylvania.

Mr Trump frequently rejects any notion that he is a threat to democracy, arguing it is Democrats who are the real threat because of the criminal investigations that he and his allies have faced for their attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

He crossed North Carolina to gain support in the ultra-competitive state. At one stop in the hurricane-battered mountains, the former president urged supporters to go to the polls despite the hardships they were facing.

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While Ms Harris was suggesting her rival is unfit for office, he was questioning the competence of the Biden administration.

Mr Trump renewed his criticism of the emergency management agency FEMA and sought to relate to working-class supporters by praising his non-stop efforts on his own behalf.

"I've done 52 days without a day off, which a lot of these people would respect," he said at a lectern backed by rubble from floods that hit the area last month.

With opinion polls showing a close race, the two candidates are picking up pace, their campaign schedule underlining the importance of small pockets of voters that could put either candidate in the White House.

Additional reporting Reuters