Protect Voting by Mail

Wisconsinites, wherever we live and no matter our physical abilities or disabilities, should have the freedom to vote.

But by banning ballot drop boxes, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has made it more difficult for people in rural and urban areas from voting by absentee ballot.

And it tried to deny persons with physical disabilities from getting assistance in the delivery of their absentee ballots, but federal law still requires such assistance.

What’s more, a Republican-dominated committee of the Legislature said it didn’t want clerks to be able to fix the pettiest of errors that the witness – not the voter – made on the outside envelope of the ballot.

For example, if the witness lives at the same address as the voter and puts “same address as above,” the committee wanted clerks to be able to toss that ballot.  Same goes for a missing zip code or missing city name. In 2016, the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously approved a guidance to allow clerks to fill in such details if they could find them.

Despite the vote by the committee, that guidance still stands. So don’t let all the recent noise confuse you.

The most important thing to remember if you’re voting by absentee ballot is to fill out every line of the certification form on the return envelope, and have your witness fill out every line of the form, and then mail it in right away.

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