Madison Clerk Blames Human Error For Duplicate Ballots, Offers Some Details

Madison’s clerk sent more than 2,000 duplicate absentee ballots, and to more than just one ward.

Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl on Wednesday responded to Congressman Tom Tiffany’s questions about how some voters in the city were sent two ballots.

“I would simply note that elections are conducted by humans and occasionally human error occurs. When errors occur, we own up to them, correct them as soon as possible, and are transparent about them – precisely as we have done here,” she wrote in an open letter to Tiffany. “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.”

Tiffany said the original explanation of a “mistake” wasn’t good enough. He asked several questions including whether law enforcement has been brought in to investigate, and what kind of assurance Madison can offer that voters won’t get to vote twice.

“It is clear that this incident involved human error and involved no criminal conduct, so there is no reason to contact law enforcement,” Witzel-Behl said in response to Tiffany’’s question about law enforcement.

“This was a simple data processing error made by one of the many dedicated, professional staff who work for the City, and as noted above the process has since been corrected to prevent a similar error from occurring,” she answered about whether the person who made the mistake has been identified.

Witzel-Behl did say that the duplicate ballot mistake was a bit larger than first reported. Originally the clerk’s office said nearly 2,000 voters in one ward were sent two ballots.

On Wednesday, Witzel-Behl said the exact number was 2,215 voters in 10 city wards.

“The affected ballots were in a single file of ballots with header code 41. The header code is the number in the upper right corner of the ballot which is unique to the offices on that ballot and the wards who receive that ballot style,” she explained. “The affected ballots were limited to a single file with a single header code. We have checked and verified that no other batches were duplicated, nor have we received any reports from other voters.”

Witzel-Behl again said that ballot barcodes will ensure that voters won’t be able to cast both of their duplicate ballots.

Tiffany shared a picture of a ballot on his Twitter account on Wednesday and pointed-out that there’s no barcode on Wisconsin’s ballots.

“Barcodes linked to the statewide voter registration system are printed on the ballot envelope, not the ballot. These types of barcodes are used across the state and the country. They are unique to an individual voter and printed on the absentee ballot return envelope so they can be scanned-in once received by a Clerk’s office,” Witzel-Behl added. “This statewide system ensures accountability and allows voters to track whether their ballot was received by their Clerk’s office.”