“Wisconsin election clerks race to understand absentee ballot ruling”

Associated Press:

Wisconsin’s 1,800-plus election clerks were racing Thursday to understand a judge’s ruling nine weeks before the election that some fear could lead to absentee ballots being counted in parts of the battleground state but rejected in others.

A judge on Wednesday barred the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission from issuing guidance to clerks, in place since 2016, about how to handle absentee ballots in which the accompanying certificates — typically the envelope the ballot is mailed back in — are missing all or parts of the address of the person who witnessed the voter casting the ballot. Clerks say that now means it is up to them to determine which ballots should be counted and which should not.

“What is tricky is: What is an address?” said Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell. “You’re going to get varying interpretations.”

State law requires clerks to either return ballots missing a witness address to the voter to be corrected or not count the ballot. The Elections Commission in 2016 told clerks that they could add information themselves if all or part of an address was missing.

Clerks only address problems on the certificate and not the ballot itself. Republicans did not contest the practice until after Donald Trump’s narrow loss in 2020, when nearly 1.4 million voters cast absentee ballots and COVID-19 vaccines weren’t available yet.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Aprahamian on Wednesday said state law does not allow clerks to fill in missing information. He granted a request from Republicans, including the GOP-controlled Legislature, to prohibit the Elections Commission from telling clerks they can do that. Aprahamian was appointed by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

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