The former Madison clerk failed to perform her work duties when local officials missed 193 absentee ballots from the November election and her office didn’t report the issue to the state until after the official count was complete, according to a city investigation.
Still, the report also concluded former Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl didn’t violate any laws as she mishandled the situation.
The city’s investigation also didn’t fault any other employees of the clerk’s office for the failure to count the 193 absentee ballots. The investigation report, released two weeks after Witzel-Behl resigned, noted there were significant discrepancies between what the former clerk told city investigators and what other staff said happened.
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“While errors were made by individual employees, these errors all appeared to be due to failures in leadership, process, and direction,” the report found. “Consequently, no further corrective/disciplinary action is recommended for other Clerk’s Office staff. Rather, these staff appear to be consistently committed to the City vision and goal of making each legal vote count in the City of Madison.”
The city and the state Elections Commission both launched investigations after the missing absentee ballots came to light. Though the first bag of missed ballots was noticed by clerk’s office personnel in mid-November, it wasn’t until Dec. 18 that the city notified the Elections Commission. By that point, additional bags of uncounted absentee ballots had been counted.
The commission opened its own probe in January into whether Witzel-Behl failed to comply with the law or abused her discretion. During an April 17 hearing, Chair Ann Jacobs announced she and GOP Commissioner Don Millis had completed depositions with Witzel-Behl and others that “raised other questions,” compelling them to seek additional interviews. Those were put off until after the April 1 election.
An agency spokesperson said Tuesday the commissioners were still taking depositions and intend to discuss the topic again at their next quarterly meeting July 17.
The city’s review included a timeline on when the missed ballots were discovered and the state was alerted to the issue. It concluded that witness accounts were largely consistent, though Witzel-Behl’s account “differed significantly.”
For example, Witzel-Behl indicated she didn’t know there were uncounted ballots prior to the week of Dec. 10. But staff believed she had been notified on Nov. 12 and that she provided guidance to them related to uncounted ballots on Nov. 27.
The report also concluded the Clerk’s office lacked policies that would’ve made it “far more obvious” that some ballots had been missed. It also found there were numerous steps that could’ve been taken ahead of the election to greatly reduce the chance that ballots would be missed.
That includes Witzel-Behl’s decision to print poll books two weeks before Election Day rather than after absentee ballots had been scanned into WisVote. That would’ve created watermarks next to a voter’s name to indicate an absentee ballot had been returned.
Elections Commission staff earlier this year highlighted similar steps that could’ve been taken to increase the chances of catching the missing ballots.
The mayor’s office declined to comment on the findings, saying the report speaks for itself.
Assembly Campaigns and Elections Chair Dave Maxey, R-New Berlin, said he’s looking forward to the conclusion of the Elections Commission’s investigation to flush out more of what happened.
“At the end of the day, these errors happen far too often, and it’s the reason that people in Wisconsin have a hard time believing the integrity of our elections,” he said.
