(WTAQ) – Fears over COVID-19 led to a record amount of requests for absentee ballots ahead of Tuesday’s election in Wisconsin. But some voters are now saying their ballots didn’t arrive before the polls closed.
Absent absentee ballots – and late absentee ballots – have been causing confusion for voters this week.
So what counts? And what doesn’t?
“Originally I was going to try to request it on Monday of last week [March 30th], but then I needed to submit a driver’s license online because they didn’t have one on file for me. So I had to go make a scan of that, and then I ended up submitting it on Friday, which was the last day you could request an absentee ballot,” says Elliott, a voter in the Village of Harrison, “They sent it to me, but it wasn’t postmarked until Monday – the day beforehand. And even though they put a first-class stamp with it, it took two days to ship. So it was sent to me the day after the election.”
Elliott tells us he chose to vote in person on Tuesday after not receiving his absentee ballot. But now – he’s not sure what to do with his absentee ballot, or if his vote even counted.
“Probably going to just end up throwing it away. I don’t even know if I have to turn it in at all because it’s technically a ballot – if that’s going to be an issue at all. I don’t know if it’s an issue that I requested an absentee ballot and then voted in person. So I don’t even know if my vote will count,” Elliott says.
“Any voter that voted in person, their ballot will be counted with that in person vote,” Outagamie County Clerk Lori O’Bright tells WTAQ News, “If they do have a ballot that was mailed to them after the fact, they need to destroy that.”
But many people are reporting either having received their ballots in the days following the election, and explain that they chose not to vote in person – usually due to concerns related to the potential spread of COVID-19. As of right now, those individuals are simply out of luck.
“If they chose to request and did receive it late – and then they chose not to go to the polls – that ballot should not be mailed. And unfortunately, they were unable to vote,” O’Bright says.
“If a ballot is received with a postmark on the 8th, 9th, or 10th of April – those cannot be counted under the current court order. So there really isn’t any additional things for this election that a voter could do if their ballot didn’t make it by the deadline,” Wisconsin Election Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe said during a media call on Wednesday, “There is no remedy in the law for someone whose ballot doesn’t make it by the postmarked deadline or the statutory deadline of 8pm on election day.”
Wolfe says some of the gap between the number of ballots sent-out and the number of ballots returned by voters is a data entry issue as clerks have not yet reported all of their ballots.
But after three bins of ballots were found at a postal facility on Wednesday, State Senator Dan Feyen filed a complaint with the WEC. Wolfe says the commission will look into what happened. Those ballots were intended for voters in Oshkosh and Appleton, but were never delivered.
Feyen released several comments about the incident on Wednesday, but was unavailable to speak with WTAQ News on Thursday. The US Postal Service did not provide comment.
We’re hearing stories now from people across the Fox Valley who claim to have never received requested absentee ballots. Many of them submitted those requests more than a week in advance. One Appleton resident – who tells us she votes in Harrison – shared her experience on Twitter, where it went viral with responses from others who saw similar situations across the state.
Among those who never received an absentee ballot? State Senate Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, who requested his on March 22nd.
“They were supposed to be mailed to people so they could vote. So a lot of people were unable to vote, including me, if they were going to comply with the public health order,” Hintz tells WTAQ News, “A big chunk of my district who voted was disenfranchised that way.”
Hintz has been in the state assembly since 2007, and even he isn’t quite sure exactly how something like this is going to be handled.
“Most municipalities like Oshkosh were encouraging people to drop their absentee ballots in the mail slot. Are those going to count or not? It’s kind of a big mess,” Hintz says, “We’re calling for an investigation because there’s a lot of questions related to the validity of the election – people who didn’t have equal access to vote.”
He isn’t the only lawmaker pushing for a probe either. Reports are showing that both Wisconsin Senators Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson are calling for an investigation into the missing absentee ballots.
Along with complaints in the Fox Valley, Milwaukee area residents have also raised questions about ballots that never arrived.
Any individuals who didn’t receive their absentee ballot – or received it late – can file a complaint online at elections.wi.gov/complaints.
