Election Integrity a Republican Illusion exposed by Pandemic!

Responding to state measures intended to slow the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus, federal Judge Conley granted Wisconsin clerks additional time to receive and tally absentee ballots,  Monday, April 13 rather than the scheduled April 7 Election Day. 

Neil Albrecht, director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, said a reversal of the judge’s extension would have “tremendous consequence to voters across the state,” “Any type of a reversal on that extension … would further compromise the integrity of this election.”

1. Some people received too many ballots. Some received empty envelopes. Some gave up trying to navigate the state’s request system. Others got their ballots after Election Day.

2. Three people — two in Mequon and one in West Allis — said they were mailed duplicate ballots. In Wauwatosa, one couple said they received envelopes with no ballots.

3. In Milwaukee, three would-be voters said they received a form letter from Mayor Tom Barrett thanking them for requesting an absentee ballot — but not the ballot itself.

4. Officials sent ballots to college students to dorms they had been forced to vacate. For some Wisconsin residents wintering in New Mexico and Florida, ballots simply never showed up.

5. Nineteen Wisconsin citizens across eight cities — from New Auburn in the north to Bristol in the south — said they requested absentee ballots only to later be told the system had no record of their applications.

6. In Wisconsin’s decentralized election system, much of the responsibility falls on local clerks, whose staffs are often tiny and not equipped to handle a surge in applications.

7. Most municipal clerks do not have access to WisVote, and must ask another official, such as a county clerk, to manually enter the applicant’s information in the database.

8. “This system was designed for a world in which 5% of voters voted by mail, not for a system in which 70% of voters voted by mail,” said Charles Stewart, a political science professor and election expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “So something has to give, and the thing that ends up giving is probably the accuracy of the request for the ballot.”