Some good changes in Wisconsin voting bills, and some not so good

A potential nightmare and national embarrassment was lessened yesterday, as Wisconsin’s Election Commission agreed to adjust practices for the 2 votes Wisconsinites will over the next 7 weeks.

There was a scenario looming that could lead to significant voter confusion and thousands of ballots being disqualified for being filled out wrongly, and it was related to the timing of those two elections, and the mailing of absentee ballots.

Wisconsin election officials abruptly canceled plans Wednesday to send tens of thousands of voters two absentee ballots for the presidential primary, saying their new approach may violate state law but will avoid mass confusion.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission this month caused panic among clerks across the state when it told them a quirk in the law would require them to send two absentee ballots to 81,000 voters — but count only one of them.

Yeah, that's not a good thing. So why would this mess have happened? Because of state statutes that came into conflict with the presidential primaries that are happening in April.

State law says absentee ballots for federal races must be mailed 47 days before the election for those who request them. That means they should be mailed on Feb. 20 for the April 7 presidential primary.

Feb. 20 falls two days after the Feb. 18 primary for local and state races. Results of the Feb. 18 primary won't be certified by the time the first batch of absentee ballots for the April 7 elections are supposed to go out….

Instead, the commission decided the two absentee ballots would be sent only to military and overseas voters. The commission, which consists of three Republicans and three Democrats, didn't have a way to get around sending two ballots to those voters because of a federal law meant to ensure military and overseas voters have enough time to return ballots with federal races on them.

Make sure you got the right thing in there.

In addition to the confusion that might make some people say "SCREW IT!", this could have led to a situation where some of those votes would be disqualified for using the wrong ballot, or assuming that filling out a ballot in one race meant the other ballot didn't matter (it would have, and it would have been thrown out).

Fortunately, the state's Elections Commission move lessens the chances of an Iowa-like disaster during the Wisconsin primaries in April. And there was a bill that got an Assembly committee hearing today that would lessen the chances of another type of election mess happening in the future. This bill relates to the problems the state had in filling the House seat of Sean Duffy, who quit in September to cash in on the right-wing grifting circuit to help take care of his sickly 9th child.

When Governor Tony Evers tried to find a time to fill the vacancy, he ran into a conflict between state laws on primary vs general election dates, the dates of the Spring elections, and the federal law requiring enough time for military and overseas voters to get their ballots and send them back (I went over that conflict in this post). So this bill would clean up that confusion for the next vacancy in Congress.

Under current law, with regard to a special election for a national office, the period between a special primary and special election or between the spring primary or spring election does not provide sufficient time to canvass and certify the primary results and prepare ballots to send to overseas voters, in compliance with federal law.

This bill requires that the special primary for a national office be held on the first Tuesday that is at least 10 weeks before the special election for that office. With regard to a special primary for other offices, the bill specifies that a special primary must be held on the first Tuesday that is at least four weeks before the special election.

Good idea here, but why did it take so long for this easy solution to be figured out?

Naturally, the Republicans have to spoil what is otherwise a good bill by throwing in some extra hurdles to vote, based on unfounded rumors.

Current law generally allows any individual who is eligible to vote to vote by absentee ballot. The bill modifies that provision so that an individual who registers to vote electronically or by mail must vote for the first time after such registration in person at the polling place or by in-person absentee ballot, unless the individual is entitled to vote otherwise than in person under federal law. For example, under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, an overseas citizen is entitled to vote by absentee ballot. Federal law otherwise allows a state to require that an individual vote in person if the individual registered by mail or has not voted previously in the jurisdiction in which the individual has registered.

So if you just moved to Wisconsin or just turned 18, but you're going to be out of town for the election or otherwise can't make it, and you can't manage to meet the times that early voting is available in your town, sorry! You're out of luck!

Along the same lines, there was another bill that got a hearing that would require clerks to match up data to see if someone might have voted more than once.

Under current law, the administrator of the Elections Commission is required to enter into a membership agreement with Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to assist the commission in maintaining Wisconsin's official voter registration list. The information ERIC provides to the commission includes information about voters registered in Wisconsin who may have voted more than once in the same election because the voter also voted in another state.

This bill requires the commission to obtain and examine after each general election information provided by ERIC indicating that individuals registered to vote in Wisconsin may have voted in another state in the same election. Under the bill, if, after examination of such information and other relevant information and documents, the commission determines based on criteria established by the commission that an elector has likely voted more than once in the same election, the commission must refer the matter to the appropriate district attorney or, in some circumstances, the attorney general.

Also, under current law, after each election a municipal clerk is required to perform an audit to assure that no person has been allowed to vote more than once. If a municipal clerk has good reason to believe that a person has voted more than once in an election, the municipal clerk is required to send the person a letter regarding the matter and send a copy of the letter and subsequent information to the local district attorney and the commission.

The problem with this (in adfition to being fueled by race-baiting AM radio paranoia) is that we already know ERIC doesn’t do a good job in identifying whether voters have moved…or if they haven't!

This was shown again in a report from Channel 4 in Milwaukee that followed up on the recent GOP-driven voter purge, which will use the ERIC database to identify people who may have moved, and removes them from the voting rolls if they don't respond to a certain mailing. Turns out there were people that had not moved, and had voted in the last 2 years, and you can guess their ethnicity.



So why are we trusting faulty data and overcomplicating this? Well, because of what I said earlier this week - Republicans can't win in November if Democrats get 1.6 million votes. So their answer is to come up with ways to make it more difficult to have Dems get to that 1.6 million votes.

Hey, why improve government efficiency, make it easier for people to vote, and work to win their hearts and minds of the public when you can rig things, right?