(The Center Square) – Questions about more than 20 late-arriving ballots in Madison are not settled.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission last month ordered the county and the city of Madison not to count 23 ballots that were delivered to polling places after 8 p.m. on April’s election day. Wisconsin law says all ballots must be at the polls before they close.
On Tuesday, Dane County voted to appeal the order from the Elections Commission.
Dane County legal counsel David Gault wrote in an argument for the county board of canvassers that the ballots were not technically late because election managers received the ballots the day before Election Day but didn’t deliver them to the polls until later the next evening.
“[Wisconin’s late ballot law] should not be construed to disenfranchise an elector who has strictly complied with all statutory requirements to cast an absentee ballot. Such a construction would, in my opinion, be unconstitutional as applied to the facts of this case,” Gault wrote. “The Supreme Court has held that failure on the part of election officials to perform their duties should not deprive the voters of their constitutional right to vote.”
The Elections Commission said that interpretation is wrong.
WEC wrote in its legal argument that Dane County is relying on an old reading of state law, and that an update in the state law makes it clear that late ballots should not be counted.
“There’s no discretion to do anything other than reject absentee ballots that were not cast according to those specific provisions,” WEC attorney Angela O’Brien Sharpe wrote.
Which Madison voters may lose their vote is unknown.
Votebeat reported Tuesday that while Madison’s election clerk ordered poll workers to mark the late-arriving ballots, some poll workers did not.
To offset that mistake, Madison “drew down” 20 ballots from the final vote count. Meaning the votes of people who were on-time with their ballots may not have been counted.
This is not the first time that Madison has had issues with counting ballots.
In the November 2024 election, Madison’s now-former clerk failed to count nearly 200 absentee ballots.
The ballots were discovered one week and one month after Election Day. An investigation showed Madison’s clerk ignored questions about counting those ballots because she had taken time off to bake Christmas cookies.
