The Wisconsin Elections Commission advised poll workers and clerks throughout the state to illegally modify witness statements on mail-in ballots so that they would not be invalidated, WISN reported.
Election law, Wisconsin Statute 6.86, requires that mail-in voters must sign their ballots and fill in their address. If either the signature or the address is missing, then it is illegal to count the vote without first returning it to the voter for correction.
The WEC told county and municipal clerks as well as poll workers to search for the voters’ addresses and fill in the verification for them.
Election workers may have counted thousands of spoiled ballots by acting on illegal and potentially manipulative information.
The instructions on mail-in ballots clearly state that voters must fill in their address and sign their name for their votes to be accepted.
“Your witness must sign and provide their full address (street number, street name, city) in the Certification of Witness section,” the instructions to mail-in voters said. “If any of the required information above is missing, your ballot will not be counted.”
But the WEC sent contradictory information to clerks less than a month before the election.
The advisory, which may have been used to facilitate voter fraud, is still on the WEC’s website:
“Please note that the clerk should attempt to resolve any missing witness address information prior to Election Day if possible, and this can be done through reliable information (personal knowledge, voter registration information, through a phone call with the voter or witness),” WEC wrote. “The witness does not need to appear to add a missing address.”
The WEC anticipated a lawsuit to be filed because of the illegal instructions, so it reportedly told clerks to complete ballot addresses in red pen.
“The statute is very, very clear,” said retired Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who served as a poll watcher on Election Day in Milwaukee “If an absentee ballot does not have a witness address on it, it’s not valid. That ballot is not valid.”
If the courts uphold the clear text of Statute 6.86 and the plain instructions on mail-in ballots, then any ballots filled in by clerks or poll workers will be discarded from the count.
“In defiance of and direct contradiction to the statute, the Wisconsin Elections Commission gave guidance–that is, cover–to all 72 county clerks and turned the statute on his head,” Gableman said. “They said, ‘Gee, we know the law says an absentee ballot without the witness address is not valid, but county clerk, you have a duty to go ahead and look up on your own the witness’ address if there’s no address on the absentee ballot.”
President Donald Trump’s campaign is investigating allegations of “irregularities” in at least 10 states, including Wisconsin.
Trump has said Wisconsin should recount the vote.
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has also called on the state to review the vote, The Washington Examiner reported.
“With concerns surfacing about mail-in ballot dumps and voter fraud, Wisconsin citizens deserve to know their vote counted,” Vos said in a statement. “There should be no question as to whether the vote was fair and legitimate, and there must be absolute certainty that the impending recount finds any and all irregularities.”
