Wisconsin Elections Commission Not Changing Guidance on How Clerks Handle Mistakes on Absentee Ballots

Tuesday, February 1st, 2022 -- 9:17 AM

(Raymond Neupert, WRN) The Wisconsin Elections Commission will not be changing its guidance on how clerks handle mistakes on absentee ballots.

That's after a Republican-led attempt to force clerks to contact voters before fixing simple errors failed to pass. Commission Chair Ann Jacobs says the rule change wouldn't even stop the fraud that Republicans say they're worried about. "That's never happened cuz if it had happened we would know about it because nobody would have voted twice."

Republicans on the commission wanted to require clerks contact voters whose envelopes have errors to confirm changes in order to prevent fraud. Commission Chair Ann Jacobs said that was trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. 

"The idea that there's this grand criminal enterprise of people intentionally forging ballots and then not filling out the witness address so that the clerks can do it for them as some sort of nefarious scheme is bizarre."

The vote means that the Commission will send the current guidance to correct changes when possible to the legislature's joint rules committee for a review. Republicans on that committee are likely to object.

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