Hundreds of absentee ballots mailed back to the City of Madison for Tuesday’s election may not be counted, thanks to a missing postmark.
The problem is one that is emerging in communities across Wisconsin as election officials prepare to tally the results of an election conducted during the coronavirus pandemic. Results for the state Supreme Court and other races are to be released Monday.
The issue has surfaced because of a surge in mail voting and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the eve of the election that requires absentee ballots to be postmarked by election day, April 7, if they arrive after that.
Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said that so far her office has received more than 8,000 absentee ballots in her office. Of those, 682 have no postmark, meaning that it’s likely that they won’t be counted.
She said that seeing the ballots come in without the postmark has been frustrating, especially since the ballots that came in on Wednesday were likely mailed before Tuesday.
“It’s heartbreaking to see that many of them have no postmark,” she said. “That’s not the fault of the voter. The voter has no control over that.”