Swing State Sued for Establishing 'Clearinghouse' Online Absentee Ballot Application Process in Violation of State Law
A lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission filed Friday alleges the agency is violating the law by allowing residents to apply for absentee ballots online rather than through the individual municipal clerks’ offices.
Additionally, the suit charges that the WEC is unlawfully failing to comply with election law by not maintaining an accurate voter registration list, but rather a database that contains over 3 million ineligible voters.
In his motion for summary judgment, Wisconsin voter Scott Sidney states, “WEC is failing to comply with Wisconsin law by extralegally operating an online clearinghouse for the collection of absentee ballot requests via its website myvote.wi.gov.”
“According to the WEC website, the use of absentee ballots increased approximately 72% between November 2018 to November 2022. 14. However, Wisconsin law explicitly endeavors to prevent fraud and abuse in the absentee ballot process, as stated in Wis. Stat. § 6.84(1),” the court filing continues.
The statute provides, in part, “The legislature finds that the privilege of voting by absentee ballot must be carefully regulated to prevent the potential for fraud or abuse.”
Some primary methods for applying for an absentee ballot under the law are either by mail or in person at the municipal clerk’s office or through an authorized third-party representative.
“Wisconsin law provides no option for a voter to request an absentee ballot via filling out a form on a website, whether that website is maintained through WEC, a clerk, or anyone else. Nor does section 6.86 allow for persons to request an absentee ballot through an intermediary. Yet, that is exactly the function of the online clearinghouse,” Sidney’s brief in support of his motion for summary judgment states.
The Wisconsin voter calls on the judge to command WEC “to cease operation of the clearinghouse, and that clerks may not issue absentee ballots unless they receive a written request directly from a voter via one of the methods identified in section 6.86.”
Sidney argues such a ruling would be consistent with the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision in Teigen v. WEC in 2022 declaring the use of absentee ballot drop boxes illegal.
Drop boxes were used widely in the Badger State in the 2020 election.
“Just as in this case, where there is no statute authorizing the maintenance of an online absentee ballot clearinghouse,” Sidney’s court filing says.
Conservative commentator Barry Farah told The Western Journal, “The lawsuit asks the Court to command WEC to quit providing people with access to an absentee ballot outside the confines of the law. Wisconsin law explicitly endeavors to prevent abuse and fraud that can result from increased absentee ballot availability.”
In addition to the online absentee ballot application website, Sidney is also calling on the judge to direct WEC to create and to maintain an accurate voter registration list.
“Wisconsin law provides that WEC must maintain a ‘Registration List’ that contains only “electors that are properly registered to vote.”
“WEC has not created, and is not maintaining, a registration list as defined by Wisconsin law consisting solely of persons that are ‘electors properly registered to vote,” Sidney said.
“Instead of doing so, WEC maintains a database that contains voters it admits are ineligible to vote because they are deceased, have been adjudicated incompetent and had their right to vote revoked, are felons, and/or are not properly registered or ineligible to vote for other reasons,” the court filing continued.
“Over the years WEC’s failure of duty in this regard has resulted in the [WisVote] database swelling to over 7.4 million names, when there are only 4.2 million Wisconsin residents of voting age.”
The lawsuit calls on WEC to “migrate all properly registered, eligible voters found in the WisVote Database to a new, completely separate electronic list that consists solely of these voters and “provide only this new list to clerks for use in administering future elections.”
Further clerks should not be allowed access to the WisVote databases containing the over 3 million ineligible voters.
Farah said about 633,000 of these names are people who are dead.
“The 1812 election clerks should not have access to any list but a clean valid list of eligible registered voters,” the host of “The Barry Farah Show” added.
The Western Journal reached out to WEC by email for comment regarding the suit.
Riley Vetterkind, a WEC spokesman, responded by writing the agency does not generally comment on ongoing litigation, but provided links on its website where questions regarding the voter registration database have been previously answered.
WEC conceded the WisVote Database contains over 3 million ineligible voters, but explained they are listed as inactivate and therefore cannot vote without re-registering.
In response to the question why not just delete inactive voters, WEC answered, “Wisconsin law requires that there be an active and an inactive voter list. There are several reasons for doing this.
“First, it’s a historical public record, and cannot be deleted. But primarily, it allows your voter history to follow you when you move and reregister, even if there is a gap because you move out of Wisconsin for a few years and then return and register again.”
WEC added, “if someone is dead and if the clerk gets a registration form for that person, the clerk would see that the person is deceased and would not register them.”
The agency did not answer why it cannot maintain a registered voter database in addition to its current WisVote one with both eligible and ineligible voters.
The conservative group Judicial Watch reported in May that it has successfully sued multiple states and localities since the 2020 election in its effort to clean up state voter registration rolls.
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