Republican legislators suspend election rule allowing clerks to fill in missing information on absentee ballot envelopes
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MADISON - Republican legislative leaders suspended a rule set by the Wisconsin Elections Commission allowing clerks to fill in missing information in the addresses of witnesses signing absentee ballot envelopes.
GOP members of the Legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules said state law does not allow clerks to fill in the information. They said clerks can attempt to return the ballots to the voter for correction.
In 2016, the Wisconsin Elections Commission issued guidance to local clerks saying they could fill in missing witness information on absentee envelopes without contacting the witness or the voter.
The commission issued an emergency rule this month to codify the guidance. But last week, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu and Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Tyler August sent a letter to the legislative committee asking for it to be eliminated.
Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, who co-chairs the committee, said the elections commission was exceeding the provisions of state law.
"The WEC emergency rule improperly authorized municipal clerks to make corrections to the absentee ballot certifications without the knowledge of the voter or the voter’s witness," Nass said. "State law makes abundantly clear that any absentee ballot certification that contains a missing address for the witness, shall not be counted. The WEC emergency rule was an attempt to circumvent state law.”
Ann Jacobs, a Democratic commissioner, on Wednesday interpreted the committee's action in suspending the emergency rule as technically putting the original 2016 advice back in place.
Commission spokesman Riley Vetterkind said under state statute a two-thirds vote of the commission is required to retract its 2016 guidance.
"So our 2016 guidance regarding absentee certificate envelopes remains in place at this time," he said in a statement. "The Commission, however, may meet to determine further action on the topic."
The four Democrats on the committee who voted against the measure argued that over-worked clerks would not have time to do the extra work of tracking down the absentee voter.
Rep. Gary Hebl, D-Sun Prairie, said this is the latest move by Republicans to stop elderly and people with disabilities from voting.
"The clerk does just have the option to chuck it into the wastebasket — and what happens if this absentee ballot arrives two days before the election, or one day before the election, they can't send that back to the voter, so we have a real problem here," Hebl said.
Republican candidate for governor Rebecca Kleefisch released a statement praising the committee on their decision.
“Unelected Madison bureaucrats have no business rewriting our election laws to meet Democrats’ demands for ballot curing," Kleefisch said. "As governor, I’ll abolish the Wisconsin Elections Commission because of their repeated pattern of ignoring the law and give its power to an elected office accountable to voters."
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In their review of the 2020 election, the Legislative Audit Bureau last year concluded more than 1,000 ballot certificates, or 7% of those sampled, had partial addresses for witnesses. Most of those were missing a ZIP code but some included other parts of the address.
Fifteen lacked witness addresses entirely, eight lacked witness signatures and three lacked voter signatures. Certificates without signatures should not be counted under state law.
Trump challenged the policy after the 2020 election, but the state Supreme Court found he had done so too late.
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Molly Beck of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
Corrinne Hess can be reached at chess@gannett.com. Follow her @corrihess
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Republicans suspend rule letting clerks fix absentee ballots
