News
January 03, 2025 | By Benjamin Yount
Policy Issues
Ballot Integrity

Wisconsin Elections Commission in the Dark About Missing Madison Absentee Ballots

Jacobs said the Elections Commission must investigate because Madison’s explanation in December “gave some information, but left many outstanding questions.”

WEC Chairwoman Comments on Missing Madison Ballots

The head of Wisconsin’s Elections Commission is making it clear that they didn’t know about Madison’s missing absentee ballots until well after the first ballots were found.

WEC chairwoman Ann Jacobs took to Twitter Friday to offer some insight into the nearly 200 uncounted absentee ballots that were found after Election Day.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission did not learn about these ballots until 12/18/24, long after the election had been certified (on 11/29/24)," she wrote in her post.

After that, Jacobs laid-out a bit of a timeline.

"12/19/24, WEC staff asked for a call with the Madison Clerk and City Atty., which occurred on 12/20. WEC asked the clerk for details on how this happened, and a statement was provided by her on 12/23," she added. "On 12/26, I directed our legal team to prepare a memo on what authority the WEC had to further investigate the matter. That memo indicated that the WEC did have the power to investigate, and I asked that a meeting be scheduled so that the WEC could vote to investigate."

That meeting happened Thursday, and the Commission voted to move forward with an investigation into Madison's missing ballots.

Jacobs said the Elections Commission must investigate because Madison’s explanation in December “gave some information, but left many outstanding questions.”

No one at Madison’s clerk's office has yet to explain what happened between the time the first uncounted absentee ballots were found on November 12th, and the time the second set of uncounted ballots were found on December 3rd.

It wasn’t until two weeks later, on December 18th, that Madison said something to the Elections Commission.

And it took another week before Madison’s mayor said something about the missing ballots to the public.

Jacobs on Friday said she hopes to have answers from Madison and the city clerk’s office by the middle of this month.

“It is our hope to have the necessary answers and a full understanding of what went wrong in the next 2 weeks. The Comm. will then meet to discuss what our next steps should be to both address what has already happened, and to prevent it from happening in the future!” she ended her post on Twitter.

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