Wisconsin judge ponders what constitutes a voting address

Madison, Wisconsin (AP) — A Wisconsin judge on Tuesday ruled that part of an eyewitness speech was missing in the latest legal battle in a battleground state where Republicans are against accepting partial speeches. ​​We considered whether to clarify whether resident voting can be accepted by local election authorities.

The lawsuit was filed by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin last fall, weeks before the midterm elections. The crux of the case, and another similar lawsuit pending, hinges on how much witness speech must be present for an absentee ballot to count.

Wisconsin law states that ballots cannot be counted if the address of the witness is not listed. But state law doesn’t define what’s missing. The bipartisan Wisconsin Election Commission has not disclosed what constitutes an unknown address. However, for what constitutes an address, he has issued guidance that three elements must be included: house number, street name, and city.

“There is no definition of missing.I mean,[the board]is letting its clerks down, and the people of Wisconsin by not deciding what that means for ballot counting purposes. It’s letting them down,” argued Dan Lentz, an attorney for the league. number of female voters.

The Republican-controlled Congress argues that an address is “missing” if any of these three elements are absent. Arguing that only missing ballots should not count. The league alleges that the state’s more than 1,800 local election officials make different decisions about what constitutes an address, resulting in votes being cast in one place and tallied in another. added that it could be

The state legislature asked the judge to dismiss the request for a court order defining what constitutes a missing address. Congress argues that local election officials should have been sued, not state election commissions.

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Nia Trammell said Tuesday she expects to issue a written decision within a month after brief oral arguments.

In 2016, the Electoral Commission said local election workers could enter missing address information to ensure ballots were counted. But a judge in September sided with Republicans and ruled that election workers are not allowed to fill in the missing information. It did not make a ruling on what constitutes an address, leading to a lawsuit filed by the Women’s Voters Federation.

The league is represented by Fair Elections Center and Law Forward, law firms that have represented liberal groups that have filed lawsuits over voting rights in Wisconsin.

Trammell and another Dane County judge refused to take urgent action in the weeks leading up to the November election to clarify the address issue for absentee ballots, saying it would cause confusion heading into the election. rice field.

Rise Inc., a liberal group that encourages students to vote, has filed a similar lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks a ruling that absentee ballots must allow partial speeches.

Wisconsin rarely returns ballots with missing or incomplete witness addresses.

In 2021, the Legislative Audit Office examined approximately 15,000 absentee ballot envelopes cast in 29 municipalities in the 2020 election and found that 1,022, or about 7%, had a partial witness address. It turns out I was missing. Without a witness speech, he received only 15 votes, or 0.1%.