Lawsuit seeks to ensure clerks can count partial addresses on absentee ballots
MADISON Wis. (CBS 58) -- To ensure absentee ballots that include partial witness addresses count in the November’s election, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin is suing the State Elections Commission.
The lawsuit filed Friday argues clerks should be able to accept absentee ballot envelope's missing address information. For example, a zip code or WI for Wisconsin. It comes after a similar lawsuit was filed earlier this week to allow clerks to correct partial addresses.
In the past, clerks have been allowed to fill in the gaps. But in early September a Waukesha County judge ruled municipal clerks can't cure ballots, meaning they are prohibited to fill in missing address information on ballot envelopes.
It's a ruling that forced members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission to rescind its 2016 guidance that allowed clerks to correct ballot envelopes that are filled out and signed by a witness. WEC essentially tells clerks they cannot get involved. Either the voter corrects the missing information or the ballot is invalid.
The decision put clerks in a difficult spot because state law does not define what constitutes an address, leaving some election officials to decide on their own whether to count the ballot or not.
The lawsuit, filed by the League of Women voters, states "Wisconsin voters need an answer to the unresolved legal question of whether a witness's address is "missing."
"The denial of the right to vote for the omission of certain witness address components would violate the 1964 Civil Rights Act, specifically the prohibition on denying a vote based on an immaterial omission or error. State names and zip codes are immaterial to identifying the voter's witness," the lawsuit states.
A review by the Milwaukee Elections Commission found little more than one percent of all absentee ballots cast in April were missing address information.
The non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau also reviewed nearly 15,000 absentee ballot envelopes and found only about seven percent of them were missing witness address information.
