Dane Co. judge rules clerks can accept absentee ballots with incomplete witness addresses

A Dane County judge ruled that election clerks in Wisconsin may accept absentee ballots that are missing parts of a witness address as long as they can use the available information to discern how to contact the witness.

The ruling, which came Tuesday from Judge Ryan Nilsestuen, granted a request filed in September 2022 from a Madison voter and Rise Inc., a liberal group focused on increasing participation among young voters. The lawsuit sought to overhaul the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s (WEC) guidance on the acceptance of absentee ballots when the witness signature is incomplete.

State law requires that when someone casts an absentee ballot, another person must witness the voter filling out the ballot. Witnesses must then sign the ballot envelope and provide their address. The WEC has worked in recent years to define what the address requirement means and what components must be included to allow the ballot to be accepted and counted. Election issues in Wisconsin have remained controversial since the 2020 presidential race. The address question has lingered, hinging on what must be included — does the witness need to provide the street address, municipality, zip code and state? Is the state implied if the municipality is in Wisconsin? Is the zip code required? What if a municipality with a long name (which is not uncommon in Wisconsin) is written with a regular abbreviation in the small space provided on the envelope?

The lawsuit challenging the guidance was filed against the WEC and the clerks of Madison, Green Bay and Racine shortly after a Waukesha County judge had ruled in a different case that clerks would no longer be able to add missing address information — a process known as ballot curing. Prior to that case, guidance written in 2016 allowed clerks to add missing information “if clerks are reasonably able to discern any missing information from outside sources.”

https://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/dane-co-judge-rules-clerks-can-accept-absentee-ballots-with-incomplete-witness-addresses/?