WI State Supreme Court won't take case on misprinted ballots, causing likely delays for tallying
MADISON - The state Supreme Court declined to take a case Thursday that would tell officials in northeastern Wisconsin how to deal with misprinted ballots, raising the prospect of lengthy counting delays as clerks fill out thousands of replacement ballots on Election Day.
Clerks in Outagamie and Calumet counties had hoped the high court would have allowed them to make a marking on the ballots that would have allowed them to be read by automatic counting machines. But because the court wouldn't take the case, the clerks won't have that option.
The justices' decision not to accept the case fell along ideological lines, with the four conservatives declining to take it and the three liberals saying they should have.
The clerks are now scrambling to find more poll workers to help fill out thousands of replacement ballots on Election Day — work that could collectively take hundreds of hours.
“Voters can be assured that all votes will be counted," Outagamie Clerk Lori O'Bright said.
At issue are misprinted "timing marks" along the edges of about 13,500 absentee ballots sent to voters in Outagamie and Calumet counties. Electronic tabulators use those marks to read the ballots, and they can't count the ones with the errors on them.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/29/wisconsin-supreme-court-declines-take-case-misprinted-ballots/6076543002/
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