State Elections Commission Approves Absentee Ballot Fix

Municipal clerks will be given more leeway to fix small mistakes on absentee ballots under a measure approved Friday by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Under a previous policy, thousands of mailed absentee ballots could have been tossed because people who witnessed the ballots did not list their full addresses.

Milwaukee Election Commissioner Neil Albrecht said there was no justification for that.

“I want us to be very cautious that we don’t move into an era where suddenly human error somehow costs someone the opportunity to cast their ballot in a presidential election,” Albrecht told the commission Friday.

Albrecht and other election officials praised the state’s new policy, which will require clerks to count absentee ballots if they can figure out where the witnesses live.