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A Dane County circuit judge has rejected a bid by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin to force election officials to let voters void their returned absentee ballots and vote again in person on Election Day, denying the group's request for temporary relief in its lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
The League had asked the court to block enforcement of the state rule providing that an elector who mails or personally delivers an absentee ballot to the municipal clerk is not permitted to vote in person at the same election on Election Day. The group argued the rule bars Wisconsinites from exercising their right to vote — for instance, when a mailed ballot might not arrive in time — and wanted voters who had mailed their ballots to be allowed to cast a vote on Election Day just in case.
The Republican National Committee opposed the effort in the broader legal fight, and Republicans welcomed the judge's decision. Wisconsin State Representative Calvin Callahan, a Republican who intervened in the case against the plan, said: "I got into this case to defend the law the Legislature wrote. If you mail your absentee ballot back to your clerk, you do not get another vote at the polls. The League of Women Voters asked a Dane County judge to suspend guidance that simply reiterated that law weeks before a statewide election. The court said no. One person, one ballot."
The ruling follows a separate July ruling in which Dane County Circuit Judge David Conway rejected a similar Democrat-backed push, holding that "the unambiguous language of the statute does not allow a voter to spoil an absentee ballot after it is returned." In that earlier case, the RNC also opposed the effort, and Wisconsin Elections Commission Chairman Don Millis said, "The law is clear. Once a voter returns an absentee ballot to the clerk, the voter cannot decide to change his or her vote. The law does not permit do-overs."
Wisconsin law requires mailed ballots to arrive by 8 p.m. on Election Day — November 3 — to be counted, with no grace period for mail delays. With the injunction demand rejected, the re-voting scheme the League sought is unlikely to be permitted in the midterm election.