Wisconsin Lawmaker Proposes New Way to Confirm Your Absentee Ballot has Been Received

Friday, February 3rd, 2023 -- 1:01 PM

(By Anya van Wagtendonk, Wisconsin Public Radio) Voters could sign up to receive a text message when their absentee ballots are received under a proposal being circulated in the Wisconsin State Legislature.

According to Anya van Wagtendonk with Wisconsin Public Radio, the bill, co-authored by Rep. David Steffen, R-Green Bay, would not be mandatory. Instead, voters would opt into the service as a way of solidifying confidence in the absentee voting system, Steffen said.

"Unfortunately, there's still some people who have some reservations about voting absentee," Steffen told Wisconsin Public Radio. "And by adding this form of confirmation … I think there's gonna be more people who will be open to the idea of voting absentee, and that's my goal."

Currently, voters can check on the status of their absentee ballot applications and ballots by visiting the state's MyVote Wisconsin website, which is run by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

If passed, Steffen's plan would let voters provide their cell phone numbers to receive a text confirmation when their ballot applications or ballots are scanned by their clerk. This new program would fit into the existing MyVote system, Steffen said, while offering voters a more convenient way of checking on their absentee ballots.

"The public has become very accustomed to receiving text message confirmations for their dry cleaning, their prescriptions, an upcoming flight, packages. And I realized, well, why don't we have this for our absentee ballots?" he said.

Steffen said the Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated that adding a text messaging option would cost about $10,000 to $30,000 per year, with a startup cost of about $25,000. Absentee voting increased significantly in Wisconsin in 2020, when a high-profile presidential election coincided with a deadly pandemic that kept many people at home.

About 2 million absentee ballots were processed that November, according to an official report by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. In the 2022 midterm elections last November, more than 740,000 Wisconsinites voted absentee.

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