Wisconsin Election Board Follows Court Order, Votes to Accept Partial Addresses on Absentee Ballots

Absentee Voting

The Wisconsin Elections Commission has complied with court orders and will now tell the over 1,800 local election clerks they can accept absentee ballots that are missing parts of a witness address.

The commission made the move after members voted 5-1 Thursday.

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Judge: Wisconsin Absentee Ballots Without Complete Addresses Can Be Counted

A judge in Dane County says absentee ballots in Wisconsin don’t need a full address to be counted this year.

Judge Ryan Nilsestuen ruled local election managers need not reject absentee ballots if the absentee witness’ address is incomplete.

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State Rep. Brandtjen Doesn’t Trust Wisconsin to Count Absentee Ballots Due to Milwaukee’s Past ‘Election Shenanigans’

The Republican who led the first investigation into Wisconsin’s 2020 election says she does not trust the effort to count the state’s absentee ballots early because she doesn’t trust election officials in Milwaukee.

State Rep. Janel Brandtken told The Center Square there are serious security concerns with the Monday Count plan moving ahead at the Wisconsin Capitol.

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Judge Orders New Democrat Mayoral Primary in Connecticut After Seeing ‘Shocking’ Ballot-Stuffing Videos

A Superior Court judge in Connecticut has ordered a new Democrat mayoral primary in Bridgeport after surveillance videos showed a Democrat official apparently stuffing absentee ballots into an outdoor ballot box ahead of the original primary.

Incumbent Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim won the election by 251 votes out of 8,173 cast, and absentee ballots reportedly played a deciding role in his margin of victory.

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Election Integrity Issues for November Elections Begin with Absentee Ballots

As state and local elections are set to conclude on Election Day next month, election integrity issues have already begun with absentee ballots. 

Counties across the country have already run into problems with absentee ballots for local November elections, as Republicans such as former President Donald Trump and U.S. Senate candidate for Arizona, Kari Lake, have repeatedly criticized issues with absentee ballots. 

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In Disbarment Trial of Former Trump Attorney John Eastman, Kari Lake’s Attorney Goes over Significant Laws Broken in Various States During 2020 Election

The disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional legal scholar, John Eastman, wrapped up its seventh week on Friday, with more testimony from Kari Lake’s attorney Kurt Olsen, and Eastman resuming the stand briefly at the end. Olsen discussed several laws he said he believes were violated by state election officials in Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Olsen began testifying about a Motion for Leave to File a Bill of Complaint that he and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking to stop Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin from certifying their 2020 election results due to multiple violations of state law and constitutional problems. One of the reasons he said he brought the complaint was that signature verification was halted in the 2020 election in Detroit. 

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RNC, Republican Party of Wisconsin Seek to Intervene in Leftist-Led Lawsuit on Illegal Absentee Ballot Drop Boxes

The Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Wisconsin have filed a motion to intervene in Priorities USA v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, an election lawsuit filed in the Badger State by attorney Marc Elias, known as the fixer for the Democratic Party and its politicians.

The original suit, filed in Dane County Circuit Court by the Elias Law Group in July, demands Wisconsin voters be once again allowed to return absentee ballots in drop boxes.

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Commentary: GOP Split on How to Handle Absentee Votes

“I can’t begin to understand what ballot harvesting is,” Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the former Republican House Speaker, said in an interview in the wake of a 2018 political upset in Orange County, California. Democrats had swept the congressional seats in one of California’s few Republican strongholds, largely due to a well-executed strategy of harvesting, or the collection and submission of ballots by someone other than the voter.    

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New Study Identifies Eight Reforms that Took Florida’s Election Day from ‘Worst to First’

Florida elections have come a long way since the “hanging chad” debacle of 2000. During the 2022 midterms, the state reported the results of all elections within two hours of polls closing, and a new report examines the election law changes that have been credited for the turnaround.

The 2000 presidential election between then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore was decided by the 25 electoral votes from Florida, which didn’t announce its results until five weeks after Election Day.

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Runbeck: Election Firm Involved in Maricopa County’s Alleged Chain-of-Custody Violations

As Republican Kari Lake appeals a legal defeat in her lawsuit challenging certification of her narrow loss in Arizona’s Nov. 8 gubernatorial election, she is alleging that ballot chain-of-custody issues occurred at Runbeck Election Services, a company that municipalities across the country use for outsourcing election operations.

Lake is appealing a ruling against her last month in her suit against former Secretary of State and current Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and Maricopa County election officials demanding the election result be set aside due to alleged failures and misconduct by the county. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson found that Lake failed to meet a legal standard of clear and convincing evidence that intentional misconduct changed the outcome of the election.

In her appeal, which challenges the legal standard applied by the trial court, Lake alleges that Maricopa County’s “massive violations of law and maladministration” included violating Arizona law’s chain-of-custody requirements by not having Election Day dropbox ballots counted at Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center (MCTEC) before going to Runbeck.

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Wisconsin Republican Boss: More Poll Watchers Are Watching Fewer Absentee Ballots

Early voting has begun in Wisconsin, and so has the Republican election watch.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Paul Farrow said Thursday that the party has increased its focus on both poll workers and poll watchers to make sure that there are eyeballs watching to vote count this year.

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The DNC Wants to Block Wisconsin Lawsuit over Incomplete Absentee Ballots

The Democratic National Committee is looking to join the legal fight over incomplete absentee ballots in Wisconsin.

The DNC on Monday filed to join the lawsuit seeking to allow local election clerks to continue filling in missing information from ballots they receive this fall.

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Judge Refuses to Allow Wisconsin Ballot-Changing Guidance to Continue

Wisconsin’s Elections Commission had until the end of the day Wednesday to tell local election clerks that they cannot add missing information to absentee ballots in November.

A judge in Waukesha on Tuesday refused to stay his order from last week that struck down the Commission’s guidance on ballot curing.

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Some Wisconsin Election Managers Ignoring Wisconsin Supreme Court Ruling on Absentee Ballots

There are different rules for returning absentee ballots in some Wisconsin communities.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court in February reinstated an order from a Waukesha County judge that banned ballot drop boxes and stated that voters can only return their own ballot to the polling place or elections office.

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The Star News Network’s National Political Editor Neil McCabe Visits Georgia State Capitol to Question Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

The Star News Network National Political Editor, Neil W. McCabe visited the Georgia State Capitol Thursday to ask Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger specific questions about the documents underpinning the 2020 election results. 

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Wisconsin Elections Commission Gives Election Managers Leeway to Add Information to Absentee Ballots

 Local election managers across Wisconsin are being told to fill in missing information – a practice commonly referred to as “curing” – on absentee ballots if they can find it.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Monday night voted down a proposal that would instruct clerks to contact voters before making any changes to absentee ballots.

Commissioners then immediately voted to approve guidance that allows clerks to cure ballots on their own.

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Michael Patrick Leahy Talks About Pop Up Nonprofits Used for Partisan Political Purposes

  In a special interview, Thursday on First Principles with Phill Kline – host Kline talked with Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO, and editor-in-chief of The Star News Network who uncovered partisan non-profit popups in swing states and the importance of election integrity as the deciding fate of America’s constitutional Republic.…

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Phill Kline to Michael Patrick Leahy: ‘Zuckerberg Money Paid for the People Who Boarded Up the Windows and Kicked America Out’

Thursday morning on First Principles, host Phill Kline welcomed The Star News Network’s CEO, Michael Patrick Leahy to the phone lines to discuss the influence of Zuckerberg’s money on the 2020 election and altered state election laws.

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Analysis of DeKalb County, Georgia 2020 Election Absentee Ballot Transfer Forms Identifies Several Problems

An analysis by The Georgia Star News of DeKalb County’s absentee ballot drop box transfer forms from the November 2020 election identified a number of problems that puts the documents out of compliance with the Georgia Board of Election Emergency Rule 183-1-14-1.8-.14.

The Star News reviewed 725 absentee ballot drop box transfer forms, obtained from the DeKalb County law department in response to an open records request, that were used by DeKalb County during the November 2020 election to document the chain of custody of the 61,731 absentee ballots deposited in drop boxes .

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Commentary: Election Rules Have to Mean Something

The rule of law must be respected for liberty to be protected.  Changing the rules to achieve a desired outcome undermines both, and when this is done in the administration of elections, democracy itself is imperiled.

Unfortunately, the left shows no compunction about wielding power for partisan advantage, especially when it comes to election administration. They’ve even gone so far as to create new rules to suit their purposes, regardless of whether they possess the authority to do so.

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