On Wednesday, a judge handed Wisconsin‘s Republican-led legislature a win by ruling incomplete absentee ballots will not be counted toward the elections.
With less than two weeks until Election Day, Dane County Circuit Judge Nia Trammell ordered absentee ballots containing an incomplete witness address not to be counted out of concern tallying the ballot would “disrupt the status quo” and cause confusion.
Originally, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said that an address must include three elements: a street number, street name, and municipality in order to be tallied. The Commission's strict rules triggered The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin to seek a temporary injunction, arguing that an address can only be missing when the entire field is left blank. (RELATED: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules State's Mail-in Voting May Remain in Effect)
Judge Trammell rejected the liberal group's request on Wednesday according to CBS News, noting that loosening the witness address requirement would “would upend the status quo and not preserve it” and also “frustrate the electoral process by causing confusion.”
If she agreed with the league, the ruling would be quickly appealed and possibly overturned, which would result in ballots being tossed that were submitted by voters who thought their witness signatures were sufficient, Trammell said.
“This court does not want to add to the confusion that may arise from a temporary injunction that would all but certainly be appealed on an expedited basis,” she said.
The move is a considerable win for state Republicans due to Wisconsin's narrow election margins, however, very few ballots are expected to be affected by the rule.
[Gov. Tom] Evers, who faces Republican Tim Michels on Nov. 8, won in 2018 by just 29,227 votes. Biden defeated former President Donald Trump by just 20,682 votes. Trump won Wisconsin by 22,748 votes in 2016.
The Legislative Audit Bureau last year reviewed nearly 15,000 absentee ballot envelopes from the 2020 election across 29 municipalities and found that 1,022, or about 7%, were missing parts of their witness addresses. Only 15 ballots, or 0.1%, had no witness address.
Since 2020, the state Legislature has passed multiple efforts to address election integrity concerns and tamp down on absentee voting. However, each effort has been blocked by Wisconsin's Democrat governor.
A number of states have sought to tighten mail-in voting requirements ahead of November's midterms with mixed results. Republicans are projected to make gains in the House of Representatives and the Senate. (RELATED: More Voters Favor Republican Control of Congress)
In September, a Delaware judge ruled the measure making vote-by-mail a permanent fixture in elections is unconstitutional and may not be used in this year's election.
Read Next: Delaware Judge Rules Mail-in Voting Law Unconstitutional >>
Follow the rules/laws as written, if they need changing than work on that, but we just don’t get to ignore them because they don’t support an agenda in the moment.
If a voter cannot follow the SIMPLE instructions of filling out their COMPLETE address, then I really don’t want them trying to pick ANY elected official!!!! To me, it just means they were TOLD whom to vote for, so they did!
Want fair elections ??? Only those registered and with proper ID are allowed to vote in person at their polling places. Only exceptions will be those in the military/government people assigned jobs overseas.
Background checks should be done by state/county
on voter registrations to prevent fraudulence by all political parties. ID cards should be applied for when
registering to vote.
It’s a start. Now when to the hangings begin?
It’s clear why Democrats want improper ballots to be counted. People who can’t even complete a ballot properly are a lot of their voters. Not nearly all, but in a tight race they can be difference makers. It’s also why they want to increase voters by any means necessary. They know they have an advantage with people who don’t pay enough attention to vote unless special efforts are made to get them to the polls.
Hooray awesome