{"id":6032,"date":"2023-10-04T05:06:10","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T05:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6032"},"modified":"2023-10-04T06:01:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T06:01:11","slug":"lawsuit-challenges-wisconsins-absentee-ballot-witness-requirement-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6032","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Challenges Wisconsin\u2019s Absentee Ballot Witness Requirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/lawsuit-challenges-wisconsins-absentee-ballot-witness-requirement\/tcsquare\/2023\/10\/04\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Benjamin Yount<\/h5>\n

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A group with ties to national Democrats filed a lawsuit challenging Wisconsin\u2019s requirement that someone sign off on absentee votes in the state.<\/p>\n

The Elias law firm filed lawsuit on behalf of four Wisconsin voters that claims the state\u2019s witness requirement violates both the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Voting Rights Act of 1970.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act in 1965, it took aim \u2018at the subtle, as well as the obvious,\u2019 discriminatory state voting regulations,\u201d The suit begins. \u201cOne especially pernicious practice adopted by southern states after the Civil War required any would-be voter to produce a \u2018supporting witness\u2019 willing to\u2026\u2019vouch\u2019 for the aspiring voter\u2019s qualifications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisconsin law requires anyone voting absentee to have a witness sign off on their ballot envelope. Absentee ballots that don\u2019t have a full and proper witness signature are not supposed to count. The Wisconsin Supreme Court barred local election officials from curing ballots that don\u2019t have the required signatures or other information.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally, Wisconsin requires a voter to procure the assistance of an adult U.S. citizen witness to cast a valid absentee ballot. The witness must observe that the ballot is unmarked and observe the voter mark it and seal it in the ballot envelope. No one else may be present when the voter marks the ballot. Both the voter and the witness must then execute attestations.<\/p>\n

The voter must attest, among other things, they are entitled to vote, they exhibited the enclosed ballot unmarked to the witness and they then, in the witness\u2019s \u2018presence and in the presence of no other person,\u2019 marked the ballot and sealed the ballot envelope,\u201d the lawsuit states. \u201cThe witness, in turn, must attest that \u2018the above statements\u2019 \u2013 those made by the voter in the voter attestation\u2014\u2019are true.\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisconsin is\u00a0not alone<\/a>\u00a0in requiring absentee ballot witnesses. Nine other states \u2013\u00a0Alabama, Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Virginia \u2013 also require witnesses to sign off before absentee ballots can be counted.<\/p>\n

Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota require absentee ballots be notarized, or at least include a copy of a state ID.<\/p>\n

Two of the voters named in the Wisconsin lawsuit are students who attend school out of state, another is a Wisconsin native who lives overseas and the fourth is an elderly woman who lives by herself.<\/p>\n

Current Wisconsin law allows all four to vote absentee, and the witness signature requirements have not stopped them from voting absentee in the past several elections.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit names the Wisconsin Elections Commission and election commissioners as defendants. The Elections Commission has not commented on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Benjamin Yount is a contributor to The Center Square.\u00a0<\/a>
\n<\/em>Photo \u201cMarc Elias\u201d by Elias Law Group<\/a>. Background Photo \u201cCourtroom\u201d by\u00a0Clyde Robinson<\/a>. CC BY 2.0.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Lawsuit Challenges Wisconsin\u2019s Absentee Ballot Witness Requirement<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/lawsuit-challenges-wisconsins-absentee-ballot-witness-requirement\/tcsquare\/2023\/10\/04\/ by Benjamin Yount \u00a0 A group with ties to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6033,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6032\/revisions\/6033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}