WI City Investigated Over Failure To Count Nearly 200 Ballots

Wisconsin’s election regulator has launched an investigation into the Madison City Clerk’s office following revelations that elections officials failed to count nearly 200 ballots cast in November’s presidential contest.  

It’s the latest election integrity problem plaguing the leftist enclave, an “oversight” that even the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s Democrat chairwoman describes as “egregious.” 

At a special meeting late last week, the WEC unanimously voted (6-0) to open the investigation, bypassing the common practice of waiting for an outside complaint. 

“My inclination was that this was such a serious oversight, I didn’t want to wait for a complaint,” said WEC chairwoman Ann Jacobs, one of three Democrats on the six-member commission — and a highly partisan Democrat at that. “I felt it was important that the commission act promptly and also that we use the powers that we have to get out the information we want.” 

“Some of this is just speed. I thought this was so egregious that it was important that we move immediately.”

‘Unprocessed Votes’

Jacobs and other commissioners sounded displeased, to say the least, that it took so long for Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl to to notify the commission that her office had failed to count 193 absentee ballots from the Nov. 5 election. It wasn’t until Dec. 18, more than a month after the local elections office discovered a first batch of uncounted votes, that the clerk reached out to the commission. Even then, the city didn’t alert the WEC to the uncounted ballots as much as it requested help in a “reconciliation override” to enter the “unprocessed” votes into the state’s election system. 

In a Dec. 20 letter to the commission, the city finally acknowledged that on Dec. 3 elections officials “noticed that there were many outstanding returned absentee ballots.” After breaking the seal and opening a certificate bag, elections officials found two sealed carrier envelopes containing a total of 125 unprocessed absentee ballots. 

But weeks before that, on Nov. 12, clerk’s office staff members were “clearing out tabulators and discovered 1 green courier bag.” The next day, more than a week after the election, Madison elections officials opened the courier bag and found an absentee ballot carrier envelope. 

“The envelope contained 68 unprocessed absentee ballots, 67 for Ward 65 and 1 for Ward 68 (mis-sorted),” the clerk’s office wrote in its letter to the Elections Commission. “The City of Madison Clerk’s Office staff plans to debrief these incidents and implement better processes to ensure all delivered carrier envelopes are accounted for and processed on Election Night,” the letter assured. 

Curiously, the city of Madison did not inform the public until Dec. 26, when it issued a press release in “the interest of full transparency.” The city also said it would contact each of the affected voters in the three wards. Said voters were expected to receive “a letter of apology” for their trouble. 

Elections officials say the uncounted ballots would not have changed the outcome of any of the races or referenda on the ballot in the far-left city, but the voices of 193 voters were silenced at the polls. That’s something the left — without evidence — constantly accuses the right of doing. 

‘A Positive, in a Sense’

Don Millis, former WEC chairman and one of three Republicans on the commission, said while the magnitude is significant, he wants to know why the problem was “not determined or caught by the time of either the local canvass or the county canvass.” The city clerk has informed the commission that it will cooperate with the investigation and that it will release requested documents without the imposition of the state’s open records law. 

“I’m glad to see the city of Madison is willing to cooperate. My biggest concern is why it took a month and a half for this to come out. And that’s very, very disturbing,” Millis said during the special meeting. “I’m hoping we can determine why that happened as well.”

Republican commissioner Marge Bostelmann, a routine apologist for legally suspect WEC guidance, said she looks at Madison’s election integrity failures as “a positive, in a sense.” She said she wants an investigation not to “find wrong doing,” but to be used as a way to make sure something similar doesn’t happen again.

“If there was some misstep that happened, it could have occurred in a different municipality, a smaller municipality or a bigger municipality,” she said at the meeting. 

‘Safeguards’ in Place

But Madison, Wisconsin’s second-largest city dominated by liberal politicians and policymakers, sure seems to have posted some signifiant “missteps” in recent years. 

As The Federalist reported in late September, Witzel-Behl’s office was under fire for mailing out duplicate ballots to more than 2,200 voters. The city clerk issued an apology statement at the time, assuring that the office was “rectifying a data processing error.” A spokesman for the city told The Federalist the situation has been resolved and there are “safeguards” in place to prevent double voting. 

While Madison elections officials said the issue affected “only an isolated number of voters” and was “quickly caught,” the “error” raised more concerns among integrity advocates about a repeat performance of the 2020 election in the battleground Badger State. The Wisconsin Elections Commission and Democrat-run cities like Madison defied election laws and caused myriad election integrity concerns in delivering decisive votes for Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, who claimed victory over then-President Donald Trump in Wisconsin by less than 21,000 votes. 

And Madison was home to the “Democracy in the Park” ballot harvesting campaign in the fall of 2020. The controversial event, conducted under the guise of Covid mitigation, netted more than 10,000 absentee ballots on one Saturday in late September alone, as noted by The Capital Times. In total, over two days, an army of poll workers stationed at parks across the city collected an estimated 17,000 ballots. 

‘Do Both’

Bob Spindell, a Republican member of the WEC, said the commission should also investigate election irregularities in Milwaukee on Election Day in November. As The Federalist reported, GOP election observers discovered 13 vote tabulation machines appeared to have been tampered with. Milwaukee’s election chief said the unsecured tabulators, which she blamed on “human error,” forced elections officials to rerun 30,000-plus absentee ballots through the machines. Milwaukee’s final vote tally was delayed until about 4:30 a.m. the day after the election. 

“I think if we do one, we need to, you know, do both,” Spindell said in calling for an amendment to include Milwaukee in the WEC’s investigation. The motion was rejected, with Jacobs calling Spindell’s assertion “a ridiculous and bizarre conspiracy theory.” 

‘I Hate to be Cynical’

Election integrity advocates said the Election Commission’s investigation is a good first step, but they were dubious about what would ultimately come from the probe. 

“This decision by WEC to investigate vote counting abnormalities in Madison is important, but this is just one of many examples of problems in recent years that have undermined confidence in our elections,” said Annette Olson, CEO of the MacIver Institute, in a statement. The Madison-based conservative think tank helped lead the successful drive to bar private money in election administration, like Zuckbucks, through a state constitutional amendment. 

“Every ballot matters because every voter matters, and concerns about vote count irregularities in Madison must be addressed on behalf of all its voters and indeed, on behalf of all Wisconsin voters,” Kerri Toloczko, executive vice president of the Election Integrity Network, said in the joint statement with MacIver.  

Ron Heuer, president of the Wisconsin Voter Alliance isn’t holding his breath. 

“Now WEC is going to investigate the actions of Witzel-Behl. Let us see what comes from that. What she did is clearly in violation of the law,” he wrote in a WVA update distributed on Sunday. “I hate to be cynical, but my guess is, that, after the investigation is completed, there will be no consequences for Witzel-Behl, simply a ‘stern’ letter from WEC that says, do not do this again. I hope I am wrong, but they have not shown much courage thus far.”

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.