Madison didn’t rely practically 200 absentee ballots throughout election

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On Election Day in Madison, practically 200 absentee ballots slipped by way of the cracks. They weren’t processed or counted. Most of them weren’t even found till virtually a month later. 

And no one appears to know precisely how the oversight occurred. Some metropolis officers are questioning why it took so lengthy for the error to come back to mild. It’s a thriller that the handfuls of voters within the state capital would definitely wish to see solved.

The essential disenfranchisement of 193 Madison voters on Nov. 5 resulted from errors at two completely different polling places and the dearth of a complete system for ballot staff to trace whether or not they’ve counted each absentee poll

At a polling web site in Ward 56, simply west of downtown, election officers didn’t open two giant provider envelopes, used to move absentee ballots, that contained a complete of 125 ballots, Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl mentioned. At one other web site in a neighborhood barely additional west known as Regent, ballot staff at Ward 65 didn’t open one other provider envelope, carrying 68 absentee ballots, together with one that ought to have been despatched to a unique polling place.

Usually, Witzel-Behl mentioned, ballot staff at every location “triple examine” that each one absentee votes have been processed earlier than working outcomes on the tabulator.

“We have no idea why these provider envelopes had been neglected on the polls on Election Day,” she mentioned.

The oversight turned public seven weeks after the election. Till simply over every week in the past, neither the Wisconsin Elections Fee nor the Madison mayor’s workplace knew about it.

On Dec. 26, Madison’s mayor and clerk outlined in separate statements how the ballots made it to 2 polling locations however had been one way or the other left unopened. 

“Whereas the invention of those unprocessed absentee ballots didn’t influence the outcomes of any election or referendum, a discrepancy of this magnitude is unacceptable,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway mentioned. “This oversight is a major departure from the excessive commonplace our residents anticipate and have to be addressed and prevented in future elections.”  

The statements left vital questions unanswered: Precisely how and when did the ballots go lacking? Who was answerable for the error? Why was the information popping out over seven weeks after Election Day?

Rhodes-Conway, for one, made clear the lengthy delay wasn’t on her account.

“Sadly, Clerk’s Workplace employees had been apparently conscious of the oversight for a while and the Mayor’s Workplace was not notified of the unprocessed ballots till December 20,” she mentioned in an announcement.

The truth is, Witzel-Behl didn’t alert the mayor’s workplace first in regards to the lacking ballots. The clerk’s workplace advised the Wisconsin Elections Fee about it on Dec. 18. The company then relayed the information to the town lawyer, who advised the mayor’s workplace about it.

The fee discovered in regards to the lacking ballots by way of a course of that clerks should comply with if there’s a discrepancy on the polls between the variety of voters and variety of ballots. The clerk’s workplace advised the fee in regards to the discrepancy two days earlier than the deadline for reconciling these numbers, Witzel-Behl mentioned. Previous to that, Witzel-Behl advised Votebeat she was largely out of workplace.

“I personally was attempting to burn by way of trip time after the election, and was not conscious of the magnitude of this case,” she mentioned. “Looking back, I ought to have simply in the reduction of to plain work weeks after the election.”

Madison has decentralized absentee processing

Not like a few of Wisconsin’s larger cities, the place all absentee ballots are processed and counted at a single location, in Madison absentee ballots are despatched to the polling websites comparable to the place the voters would solid in-person ballots. At these websites, ballot staff usually course of the absentee poll envelopes, containing witness and voter info, earlier than counting the ballots.

Staff at every polling location have a course of for checking which voters submitted absentee ballots. They usually use an orange highlighter to mark names of voters in a ballot ebook of metropolis residents who had been issued an absentee poll, Witzel-Behl mentioned, and a pink highlighter to mark those that returned their ballots. Every polling place has paperwork outlining the variety of ballots that had been returned to be counted as of the Sunday previous to Election Day, she mentioned.

Every absentee provider envelope has a novel identification quantity on the seal closing it for safety causes. Madison polling websites didn’t obtain an inventory of seal numbers for every provider envelope that was transported to them, however the clerk’s workplace said they would supply such an inventory sooner or later. There was solely a handwritten log of the seal numbers within the clerk’s workplace.

Regardless of the 2 polling locations having numerous absentee ballots excellent on Election Day, the lacking votes weren’t found till after the Municipal Board of Canvassers met on Nov. 8 to certify the election, Witzel-Behl mentioned.

By the point one batch of uncounted ballots was found on Nov. 12, she mentioned, “Employees was below the impression that it was too late for these ballots to be counted, except we had a recount.”

Madison voters solid over 174,000 ballots within the November election. 

What we all know in regards to the lacking ballots

There weren’t any obvious points with sorting or delivering the proper ballots to the polling location close to downtown. However sooner or later after Election Day, Witzel-Behl mentioned, an hourly worker observed there have been quite a lot of excellent absentee ballots.

On Dec. 3, she mentioned, the worker appeared by way of supplies returned from that polling location on Election Day, she mentioned. The worker discovered two sealed provider envelopes containing absentee ballots. They contained 125 unprocessed ballots.

The 68 ballots on the Regent neighborhood polling web site, together with the one poll sorted and delivered to the improper station, had been contained in a sealed provider envelope of absentee ballots. 

It’s not totally clear the place that provider envelope was all through Election Day, however election staff later found it inside a chamber of a vote tabulating machine the place ballots usually go after they’re counted. Madison election officers usually use that compartment to move absentee ballots to polling websites.

On the finish of the night time, ballot staff put safe poll luggage and different supplies into the tabulators, Witzel-Behl mentioned. 

Madison clerk, mayor vow to stop future oversights 

In its letter to the election fee, the clerk’s workplace outlined its plans to “debrief these incidents and implement higher processes” to verify all absentee provider envelopes are accounted for and processed on Election Day.

Rhodes-Conway additionally mentioned she plans to conduct a evaluate of the town’s election insurance policies. Moreover, she mentioned, the town will ship letters to the affected voters to inform them of the error and apologize.

“My workplace is dedicated to taking no matter corrective motion is critical to take care of a excessive commonplace of election integrity in Madison, and to offer ongoing transparency into that course of,” she mentioned.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based mostly in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

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