A lawsuit that could complicate Wisconsin’s absentee voting process, create additional last-minute work for election officials and confuse voters is coming before a Marinette County judge Wednesday.
The lawsuit asks Marinette County Circuit Court Judge James Morrison to require voters who request their ballot through MyVote, Wisconsin’s online voting portal, to return a signed copy of their request with their actual absentee ballot for their vote to count.
Additionally, the lawsuit asks Morrison to bar election officials from using a redesigned absentee ballot envelope that states the envelope is an original or copy of voters’ original absentee ballot request — something that the lawsuit alleges is not the case.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission urged the court to reject those requests in a Friday filing. But even if Morrison were to grant the requests, the commission asked him not to require any changes ahead of this year’s elections because they “would risk disenfranchising tens or even hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters in upcoming elections,” something the commission said would be “a stunningly undemocratic result.”
The requested changes to Wisconsin’s absentee ballot voting system would add work for clerks ahead of their June 27 deadline to begin mailing absentee ballots for August’s primary elections. Morrison may be sympathetic to the requests, considering that he granted a temporary injunction May 17 prohibiting the Wisconsin Elections Commission from requiring local clerks to use the redesigned absentee ballot envelope….