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Wisconsin Election Clerks Advised on Changes to Absentee Ballots

Tuesday, February 13th, 2024 -- 1:00 PM

(Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) Ahead of the 2024 election cycle, Wisconsin election clerks have been advised to accept absentee ballots even when they are missing parts of witnesses' addresses as long as the clerks can discern how to reach the witness.

According to Molly Beck with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5-1 last week to comply with a recent court ruling ordering election officials to accept absentee ballots with missing witness information after liberal groups sued over rules set by previous court rulings in lawsuits brought by conservative groups following the 2020 election.

Under the previous guidance, clerks could not accept ballots if they could not reach witnesses to correct absentee ballot envelopes that included incomplete address information.

Republican commissioner Bob Spindell voted against the motion to comply with the ruling, after first unsuccessfully proposing to require a witness to provide photo identification before clerks could make corrections received by the witness.

Dane County Circuit Judge Ryan Nilsestuen in January granted a request filed in September 2022 by a Madison voter and Rise Inc., a liberal group that seeks to mobilize young voters, to overhaul the guidance the Wisconsin Elections Commission provides to local clerks on how to proceed when a witness' address is incomplete.

The ruling puts in place a uniform standard and is likely to result in fewer absentee ballots being rejected. The decision could be appealed and eventually make its way up to the state Supreme Court, which in August flipped to an ideologically liberal majority for the first time in years.

The commission and the city clerks for Madison, Green Bay and Racine were defendants. The Republican-led state Legislature entered the case as an intervenor seeking to have the complaint dismissed.


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