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The Wisconsin Elections Fee unanimously approved an investigation Thursday into Madison’s mishandling of almost 200 absentee ballots that had been by no means counted from the November 2024 election.
It’s the primary such investigation that the bipartisan fee has approved since changing into an company in 2016. The assessment will permit the company to probe whether or not Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl violated the regulation or abused her discretion.
Forward of the vote, Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs informed Votebeat that her precedence wasn’t “punishment” however to determine “what on earth went flawed right here.”
“Our lack of know-how, data that wasn’t given to us in a well timed trend, I feel we have to do one thing extra formal,” Jacobs stated on the assembly.
The late discovery that 193 absentee ballots from voters within the state capital weren’t counted seems to have resulted from errors at two 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 website in Ward 56, simply west of downtown, Witzel-Behl stated election staff didn’t open two massive service envelopes — used to move absentee ballots from metropolis places of work to neighborhood polling locations for counting — that contained a complete of 125 ballots. At one other website within the Regent neighborhood, ballot staff at Ward 65 didn’t open an envelope carrying 68 absentee ballots, together with one poll that ought to have as a substitute been despatched to a distinct polling place for counting.
It’s unclear whether or not the uncounted ballots had been checked in once they had been sorted on the Madison clerk’s workplace. If that they had been, a discrepancy between the variety of recorded voters and ballots would probably have been obvious on Election Day.
The town’s election outcomes had been licensed with none acknowledgment of the 193 lacking ballots. A few of the lacking ballots had been found on Nov. 12, because the county canvass was nonetheless occurring, although most weren’t discovered till almost a month after Election Day.
When the preliminary batch was found on Nov. 12, Witzel-Behl informed Votebeat, “Employees was underneath the impression that it was too late for these ballots to be counted, until we had a recount.”
The oversight wasn’t reported to the fee till Dec. 18, about six weeks after the Nov. 5 election and after the fee had already licensed the outcomes. Madison officers outdoors the clerk’s workplace, together with town lawyer and the mayor’s workplace, didn’t know in regards to the error till the fee informed Metropolis Lawyer Mike Haas about it on Dec. 19.
“There’s been zero transparency on this,” Jacobs stated.
Witzel-Behl stated she was largely out of the workplace on trip throughout that interval and “was not conscious of the magnitude of this example.”
Final week, Witzel-Behl informed Votebeat that she nonetheless doesn’t know why the three service envelopes containing 193 absentee ballots had been neglected on Election Day.
“My subject is just not with the magnitude,” GOP Commissioner Don Millis stated. “Whereas the magnitude is important, the problem is why was this not decided or caught by the point of both the native canvass or county canvass.”
“My assumption,” he continued, “is both there was a failure to comply with procedures, or our procedures aren’t good and we’ve got to appropriate them.”
Marge Bostelmann, a Republican commissioner and former clerk, stated the WEC can present steering to stop comparable errors, however she stated, “until we learn the way it occurred, I don’t know that we can provide that steering.”
Jacobs identified the spring major elections are scheduled for Feb. 18, including urgency to the investigation.
“Now we have about six weeks till our subsequent election, so the extra data we are able to find out about what went flawed — even when we’re solely in a position to ship out a quickie clerks memo saying, ‘Hey, there’s a step right here. Don’t overlook about it,’ as we work on extra formal steering — I feel we need to do this,” Jacobs stated.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based mostly in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
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