Clerk computer issues persist for third day of in-person early voting

For the third day in a row, Wisconsin clerks have reported problems with a computer system used to process absentee ballots that has caused delays and lines at polling places.

The issues come amid high turnout in the early days of in-person absentee voting.

The issue rests with the WisVote computer system clerks use to print labels that go on absentee ballot envelopes. On Tuesday, the first day of in-person absentee voting, the Wisconsin Elections Commission issued a statement that said an unknown problem was causing delays when clerks tried printing the labels, which contain a voters’ name, address and ward.

Initially, the commission attributed the delays to unexpectedly high turnout and said additional computer server space had been allocated to WisVote. More than 97,000 Wisconsinites cast absentee ballots Tuesday and long lines were reported at polling places.

Subsequent statements from the agency said the printing delays have persisted for some clerks and noted the label information can be written on envelopes manually.

On Thursday, the commission said the problem wasn’t “affecting other areas of election administration or state government” and that the WisVote printing system used by clerks had been updated. The commission’s latest statement stressed there’s no evidence the delays were caused by a cyberattack.

Sun Prairie Clerk Elena Hilby is the president of the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association. She told WPR all clerks using the WisVote system this week have experienced the printing problems. She said it started with 15 or 30 second delays and eventually labels stopped printing entirely on Tuesday and Wednesday. Hilby said there were a couple of delays Thursday as well.

“So, as soon as it started to slow down today, the Wisconsin Election Commission decided to reboot the system, and right after that, everything was up and running, working great.” Hilby said.

Hilby said without the printed labels voters can’t immediately check Wisconsin’s MyVote website to verify that their absentee ballot has been processed.

She said when the system shut down on Tuesday she and her staff printed voters’ names and addresses on ballot envelopes, then added the labels to the envelopes when the system was running again.

“Anybody on Tuesday, Wednesday and today, they’ll be able to go home onto MyVote to look and they’ll see that their ballot has been processed,” Hilby said. “So, if we weren’t taking the extra step of printing the label and getting it into WisVote, then people couldn’t then check and see that.”

Turnout has remained strong amid the technical difficulties. According to the latest data from the elections commission, 191,869 Wisconsinites had cast in-person absentee ballots by Wednesday evening. At the same time in 2020, the total was 149,856.