An unlawful directive from the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) may have led to county clerks and poll workers across the Badger State illegally altering thousands of mail-in ballots during the November 3 general election.
Wisconsin law states that any absentee ballot must be signed by a witness who must provide their home address. Should a witness signature or an address be missing, the ballot should be considered invalid and returned to the voter to have these issues resolved. If it is too late to resolve such issues, the ballot should not be counted.
But multiple sources have told The Dan O’Donnell Show on WISN in Milwaukee that municipal clerks and vote counters across the state filled out witness signatures and addresses themselves. The clerks and poll workers may have been acting on incorrect and illegal information provided to them in instructions posted on October 19 by the WEC.
“Please note that the clerk should attempt to resolve any missing witness address information prior to Election Day if possible, and this can be done through reliable information (personal knowledge, voter registration information, through a phone call with the voter or witness),” the WEC instructed. “The witness does not need to appear to add a missing address.”
However, this advice conflicts with the Uniform Absentee Ballot Instructions sent to municipal clerks on August 18, which state: “Your witness must sign and provide their full address (street number, street name, city) in the Certification of Witness section.” The instructions warned that “if any of the required information above is missing, your ballot will not be counted.”
So, if poll workers or anybody in a county clerk’s office filled in any such information, the ballots should not have been counted and they definitely should not have been “corrected” by poll workers.
“The statute is very, very clear,” said retired Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. “If an absentee ballot does not have a witness address on it, it’s not valid. That ballot is not valid.”
According to Gableman, the instructions sent on October 19, “turned the statute on its head.”
“In defiance of, and in direct contradiction to the statute, the Wisconsin Elections Commission gave guidance — that is, cover — to all 72 county clerks and turned the statute on its head,” explained Gableman. “They said, ‘Gee, we know the law says an absentee ballot without the witness address is not valid, but county clerk, you have a duty to go ahead and look up on your own the witness’ address if there’s no address on the absentee ballot.”
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