MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Republicans on Wednesday struck down provisions allowing local election officials to fill in missing information on absentee ballot envelopes, the latest move in the GOP’s push to tighten voting procedures in the crucial swing state .
The Wisconsin Board of Elections developed an emergency rule earlier this year that allows local clerks to fill in missing witness address information on absentee envelopes without contacting the witness or the voter. The rule mirrors guidelines issued by the clerks’ commission in October 2016. The guidelines were in effect during the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden narrowly defeated then-President Donald Trump.
The Legislature’s Republican-controlled Rules Committee voted 6-4 to end the emergency rule. The guidelines remain in place, but it’s unclear how many officials may follow them in light of the committee vote, and the court may soon strike them down.
The committee vote is part of a series of Republican efforts to impose tighter restrictions on voting across the country as Trump continues to spread false claims that Biden stole the election.
Multiple reviews and court rulings have found no evidence of fraud on a scale that would have affected the outcome, but Trump and his supporters continue to work to convince people that the election was not legitimate.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, at least 19 states passed laws that made voting more difficult last year, including shortening the mail-in ballot application window, stricter voter ID requirements and limiting early voting hours.
Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a sweeping package of bills earlier this year to require the rules commission to sign off on any commission guidance to make it harder for people to declare an indefinite ban to receive an absentee ballot and ban private groups from giving money to local governments to administer elections.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the entire package, but Republicans scored a major victory earlier this month when the conservative-controlled state Supreme Court banned the drop boxes. The GOP claims the boxes are not secure and lead to fraud.
Now, GOP leaders have taken aim at the clerk’s guidelines, arguing that state law prevents clerks from filling in blanks in ballot envelopes, and if a witness doesn’t fill in the missing information, the ballot doesn’t count. They asked the committee to codify the guidelines into an emergency rule that would allow the Legislature’s Republican-controlled Rules Committee to delete them.
The commission complied and drafted the rule. The committee met Wednesday afternoon to block it at the request of Republican legislative leaders, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu.
Democrats on the committee spent an hour criticizing the move, calling it a “disgusting” attempt to reduce voter turnout ahead of the Aug. 9 primary and Nov. 8 general elections, which include critical races for governor and the U.S. Senate.
“It’s a terrible mistake, but it continues down the path Republicans are on,” said Congressman Gary Hebble. “They don’t have the votes, so they have to reduce the number of people who can vote either way. It is a sad time in our democracy that we have to stoop to these levels.
GOP committee members countered that state law simply does not allow clerks to fill in missing information. They stressed that clerks could try to return ballots with incomplete addresses to witnesses. Hebble countered that overworked clerks would simply “throw” the incomplete envelopes in the trash.
“I’m interested in following state law,” said committee co-chair Sen. Steve Nass. “No one has mentioned a state law that allows (the election commission) to do what they’re doing. (The commission) is trying to create a new law. This is a primary legislative function.
It’s unclear how many officials may have acted to correct witness accounts during the 2020 election.
The Legislative Audit Bureau last year reviewed nearly 15,000 absentee ballot envelopes from elections in 29 municipalities and found that 1,022, or about 7 percent, were missing parts of witness addresses. Fifteen had no witness address at all, eight were missing a witness signature, and three had no voter signature.
Auditors found evidence that officials had corrected addresses on 66 envelopes, or 0.4 percent of the sample. However, the audit cautioned against extrapolating the findings across the country, noting that auditors reviewed ballot envelopes from nine of the 10 municipalities with the highest absentee ballot rates.
Although the rule is no longer in effect, the election commission’s original guidance that clerks could correct missing information is still in place, but perhaps not for long. The Waukesha County Republican Party filed a lawsuit earlier this month claiming the guidelines are illegal.
Dane County Clerk Scott McDonnell said if clerks were blocked from adding missing information themselves, they would have to track down witnesses, which could be cumbersome for some already overburdened offices. He said clerks may decide to send the ballot back with a request to fill in the missing information if there is enough time to do so before Election Day. Otherwise, they may need to call or email the voter.
He said allowing clerks to add missing information themselves was a “common sense system.” Often, the witness is the voter’s spouse, and clerks can verify the address through the state’s voter database.
“Any fair-minded person would think that’s reasonable,” he said.
Wisconsin Board of Elections Administrator Megan Wolfe said the board vote “puts clerks in a difficult situation” because the guidelines under which they can fill out witness address information remain in place, creating confusion.
___
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of “McDonell” in the 17th graf.
___
Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed to this report.
Add Comment