Congressman Tiffany Wants Outside Investigation of Madison Duplicate Ballots

The Northwoods' congressman is not giving-up on his questions about Madison’s duplicate ballots.

Congressman Tom Tiffany on Thursday asked for an outside investigation into how over 2,000 voters in 10 city wards were mailed two ballots.

“I remain more convinced than ever that an independent inquiry into the distribution of at least 2,215 duplicate absentee ballots to voters in at least 10 wards throughout the city1 is needed. It is also incredibly troubling that you still have not identified the person or persons responsible for this ‘error,’ or announced any plans to hold that party accountable,” Tiffany wrote in a letter to Madison clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl. “Perhaps most disconcerting has been your office’s pattern of shifting explanations with regard to exactly what happened.”

Tiffany has raised questions and concerns since news of the duplicate ballots first broke earlier this week.

Witzel-Behl on Thursday blamed human error for the duplicate ballots, and questioned Tiffany’s motives for his many questions.

“Our staff works incredibly hard to conduct elections in a professional, nonpartisan and fair manner and works to continually assess and improve our processes. This task is made more challenging every day as the conduct of elections becomes more complex and as election officials have become the target of attacks that seek to undermine the confidence of voters in our election results,” Witzel-Behl wrote in her response to Tiffany.

But Tiffany wasn’t satisfied.

He used his Thursday letter to detail what he called “inconsistencies” in Witzel-Behl’s explanation.

“For example, a spokesman initially claimed that this “error” applied to around 2,000 ballots in a single ward, which led the media to report that it was ‘only up’ to 2,000 ballots. Within 24 hours of that claim, both numbers were both revised up substantially,” Tiffany explained. “The Deputy Clerk, in what appeared to be an effort to downplay public concern, also assured voters that individual ballots were marked with a unique barcode that would serve as a ‘failsafe’ against multiple ballots being returned and counted – only to later walk this claim back to say that the barcode was printed on return envelopes.”

Tiffany closed his letter by saying that voters cannot be asked to “accept your assurances” that everything is now okay.

“Since this scandal began, the Clerk’s office appears to have been far more focused on making excuses for what happened and shielding those responsible for it from scrutiny than getting to the bottom of how a mistake of this magnitude was allowed to occur. This behavior belies the claim in your September 25 letter that your office is ‘own[ing] up’ to this deeply disturbing chain of events or being ‘transparent about them.’,” Tiffany added. “Your office’s continued resistance to allowing for a third-party investigation of what transpired, persistent efforts to scrub your website, and your personal links to a controversial Zuckerbucks financed group, will only fuel growing public doubts about your ability and willingness to administer a free and fair election.”