(The Center Square) – Two Wisconsin groups are asking state leaders to enact a new law that would prevent absentee ballots from being a public record.
Current law creates a poll list of absentee ballots counted at central count locations and then those ballots are numbered, meaning that both the poll list and the ballot number creates a system where any individual whose ballot was counted and labeled at those locations could be identified through public records that would show how an individual voted, according to a report from MacIver Institute and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
“Voter confidence in elections is critical in securing and preserving freedom in Wisconsin and America,” MacIver CEO Annette Olson said in a statement. “Protecting the secret ballot should be everyone’s priority.”
The two groups are asking the Wisconsin Legislature to amend the statute to eliminate the poll list number placed on absentee ballots at central count locations to ensure that ballots remain private.
The groups are also asking that the Legislature tells the Wisconsin Elections Commission and clerks to make certain that voter identifying information is not added to ballots during the central count process.
“We have serious concerns that enforcing this statute at central count locations could violate voters’ right to a ‘secret ballot,’” WILL Associate Counsel Nathalie Burmeister said in a statement. “We are hopeful the Legislature will amend the law, and that WEC will work with local election officials to protect the right of all voters to have the way they voted kept private.”
