MADISON, Wisc. (January 2, 2024) — Today, the Dane County Circuit Court in Wisconsin ruled in favor of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin in its lawsuit to clarify voting rights protections for voters whose absentee ballots have minor errors in listing their witnesses’ addresses. This decision means that absentee ballots with certain technical witness address defects will not be rejected in future elections. The League is represented by Fair Elections Center, Law Forward and Stafford Rosenbaum LLP.
In 2022, a Waukesha County Circuit Court in White v. Wisconsin Elections Commission barred the Wisconsin Elections Commission from using longstanding guidance for curing minor witness address defects for absentee ballots without contacting the voter. Now, without clear guidance in Wisconsin law, absentee voters are at risk of having their ballots rejected due to technical omissions or errors, with no guarantee that they will be notified and given the opportunity to correct any errors and have their votes counted.
The League’s lawsuit argued that rejecting absentee ballots for the omission of certain witness address components violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits denying the right to vote based on an error that has no material bearing on determining voting eligibility. In today’s order, the Court wrote, “the Witness Address Requirement is not material to whether a voter is qualified. . . . As such, rejecting ballots for trivial mistakes in the Witness Address requirement directly violates the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
“Wisconsinites should not have their right to vote denied due to technical errors, especially when they are not uniformly given an opportunity to remedy such issues,” said Jon Sherman, Litigation Director at Fair Elections Center. “Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act to prohibit exactly this type of disenfranchisement, and the court’s order today enforces that federal law’s protections as to four categories of absentee ballots.”