Overview
- The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 4-2 on July 9 to instruct clerks that once an absentee ballot is returned it cannot be spoiled and reissued under any circumstance.
- The guidance says changing your mind or a candidate dropping out does not count as an “accident or mistake,” so voters who already mailed, dropped off, or handed in ballots cannot obtain replacements.
- Thousands of absentee ballots were already returned before the guidance and several Democratic candidates suspended or left the race, leaving those voters unable to change votes before the August primary.
- The move restores the practical effect of a 2022 court ruling and follows a complex appeals record earlier this year, and legal advocates predict renewed litigation over whether Wisconsin law allows spoiling returned absentee ballots.
- The ruling split commissioners along partisan lines, creates a difference in treatment between absentee and in-person voters, and forces municipal clerks to balance fast preprocessing with limited voter flexibility.