Wisconsin On The Verge Of Election Chaos Over Possible Absentee Ballot Delays
Close to a million Wisconsin voters may get their absentee ballots later than planned, as Kanye West and the Green Party fight to get on the ballot.
Two high-stakes legal battles over whether West and Green Party presidential nominee Howie Hawkins can appear on the ballot are creating havoc in the crucial swing state.
Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court told local officials Thursday to stop mailing out absentee ballots while it rules on whether to allow Hawkins on the ballot. West is pursuing a similar lawsuit in a circuit court, after the Wisconsin Elections Commission ruled in August that both the rapper and the Green Party candidate did not properly make the filing deadline to appear on the ballot.
The Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision was along ideological lines, with liberals dissenting
Election officials are just one week away from a Sept. 17 deadline when state law mandates that clerks send out requested ballots to Wisconsin voters. The state has been in the process of printing and mailing out ballots for weeks. If the courts rule in favor of Hawkins or West, the state will have to start from scratch — an expensive and complicated process that could cause some localities to miss the deadline and potentially leave some voters with two versions of an absentee ballot.
“We are absolutely on the precipice of the courts creating a situation in which Wisconsin has a chaotic and catastrophic election,” said Jeff Mandell, a lawyer in Wisconsin representing voters who sued to keep Hawkins and West off the ballot.
Close to a million Wisconsinites have requested absentee ballots this cycle, breaking 2016 records as the coronavirus pandemic continues to pose a threat to in-person voting. State records show that 313,598 ballots have been marked as sent, though that number includes both ballots out in the field and ballots that have just been issued mailing labels. Wisconsin officials have no way of knowing how many ballots have actually been mailed to voters.
Wisconsin Elections Commission Chairwoman Meagan Wolfe, who was confirmed by the state’s Republican-controlled Senate, said in a court affidavit that any additional delays at this point would cause municipalities to miss the state deadlines for mailing out absentee ballots. She added that for overseas and military voters, delays “could very likely result in them not receiving a ballot or not having enough time to return their ballot to be counted.”
The impact of the continued litigation will vary across the state because of Wisconsin’s decentralized election system. In Milwaukee County, for example, there are 475 different versions of the presidential ballot that the county clerk said would take at least 10 days to print, sort, package and deliver to municipal clerks.
“If ballots had to be reprinted after they were sent to electors, municipalities would have to send a second ballot which would confuse voters and jeopardize the integrity of the election,” George Christenson, Milwaukee County clerk, told the court in his affidavit.
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