Wisconsin held their Primary last week in spite of the Pandemic and now there are claims that thousands of votes are going to be thrown out over a mailing issue. This is hanging chads all over again, but this time they are blaming the post office for not putting dated postmarks on the absentee ballots. This new requirement was recently added by the GOP as they are concerned about counterfeit votes. But post offices were not up to date on this new policy which is causing many Wisconsin voters to lose their vote entirely.
“Thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands, of Wisconsin voters may have their ballots tossed out for the most arbitrary of reasons: because the post office either did not place a postmark on their absentee ballot when it was mailed in, or because that postmark doesn’t have a date.
The reason why stretches back to a surprising decision the Supreme Court handed down the night before Wisconsin’s Tuesday primary election. That case, appropriately named Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee, was brought by Republicans seeking to make it harder for many absentee voters to have their ballots counted.
Democrats hoped to defend a lower court order providing that all absentee ballots would be counted, so long as they arrived at the appropriate polling place by 4 pm on April 13. Republicans, meanwhile, successfully asked the Court to impose a new limit on voters — that absentee ballots had to have been postmarked by April 7 or else they would not be counted.
The lower court judge originally extended the deadline to cast ballots because the coronavirus pandemic left many voters unable to vote in person, and forced the state to deal with an unmanageable load of absentee ballot requests.
The Supreme Court split along partisan lines in the Republican case, with all five Republican justices voting for the GOP’s position, and all four Democratic justices in dissent.
As it turns out, the post office does not place any postmark at all on some mail, such as ballots sent via metered mail. In other cases, ballots had postmarks which merely said the ballot was mailed at some point in April of 2020, without giving a specific date. In some other cases, the postmark was too illegible to determine on what date it was mailed.
These problems appear to be widespread. As of Friday, for example, the Madison city clerk said that her office received over 8,000 absentee ballots. Of these ballots, 682 have no postmark. If similar patterns occur throughout the state, that means thousands or even tens of thousands of voters could have their ballots tossed out through no fault of their own.”
This ruling does seem on the strict side as it only takes a couple of days to send local mail. Wisconsin should have waited until this Pandemic dies down to properly run this primary. It was foolish to hold it the peak of the pandemic for the United States. But as it stands Sanders dropped out so Biden is going to be facing off against Trump come this November. These primaries at this point are practically for show.
What a bunch of malarkey! IF the Gov. had really wanted to postpone the state primary, he had amble opportunity to run it through PROPER channels when he ordered us into house arrest 3 weeks BEFORE the spring election. Instead, he chose to wait until less than 24 hours before polling places opened to try and shut it down. He overstepped his authority and the election was rightfully held on time.
There was plenty of time for people to go to the clerk’s office and vote absentee ahead of election day if they so chose to do so. Seeing as many people are laid off right now, there should have been no problem with that.
As for the mailed in ballots, anyone who walked it into the Post Office could ask for a dated postmark to be stamped on the ballot. I’ve done this numerous times when I’m close to a cut off as otherwise all mail is shipped to Milwaukee to be processed and it can take a couple of days to get back to the town I’ve mailed it from. I haven’t figured out when they stopped postmarking with the date, but it seems to stem from about the time they started shipping everything to Milwaukee. They have always been lax over protocol there which is why I walk things into my local office for postmarks.
As for there not being any reason for this spring election, you are BADLY MISTAKEN! The MOST important parts of this spring election is the election of a State Supreme Court Justice and the question on the back of the ballot concerning VICTIM’S RIGHTS!
Sharon – – – you referred to “anyone who walks into the post office” could request a dated stamp. I once worked for postal service and mailed envelops are sent thru a machine that places the “dated stamp”. plus cancels out the customer’s stamp on the envelope. The exception occurs when a bundle of same “commercial” mailings is deposited. Those are sent thru a different machine that just “counts” them. i.e., let’s say a pile of 100 ballots are suddenly deposited. USPS employees do NOT look at each one but send it to the “counting” machine. It could be 99 of those ballots are fraud and 1 is legal. That means demoncraps just lost 99 votes. Like I said, betcha a large number of illegal votes just didn’t get counted.
Democrats are just practicing for massive vote fraud this coming November. They know they cant win without fraud and they will be desperate.
AMEN!!! that’s what the dems are planning………..
Now if that was the case as some here said then why was it not unanimous just the Republicans trying to throwing anything in to disrupt a Democratic Primary. Knowing many would not want to risk getting sick to vote. Now again it was the Republicans who put the extra think in about the postmarking of absentee Ballots when no proof of an voter fraud in that was has ever been proven.
Eye roll……
There has to be a postmark, can you imagine how many people would vote 2 or 3 times or vote after an election if they don’t ave a postmark on them.
People gotta remember that there is no action so crooked that it would be below a democrat to do it.
The Democrat primary was what is to be expected. Democrats are Democrats, Über Alles.
Once a communist/socialist ALWAYS a communist/socialist, I mean once a dumbocrat always a dumbocrat! They are really like a cancer you almost ever get rid of it altogether.
WRONG! I was reared in a dedicated demo family in a major demo region of Texas – a dedicated state back then. My first adventure in political action was advocating the election of JFK. I practically worshiped JFK and his wife – couldn’t stand his brothers or poppa. Took a while, but I finally realized what the Kennedy boys were doing to America. Then came LBJ when I was in Vietnam. He really opened my eyes. Jimmah Cahtah – the peanut farmer – was the final straw. So I have to disagree with your “dumbocrat” comment. The problem is 99.99% of dumbocrats (that’s supposed to be demoncraps) do NOT want to know the truth. Their brains are seared closed and they live by the motto of “vote democrat no matter who is on the ticket. They look for the prettiest face and who will promise them the most stuff. Knowing THAT should help people understand demoncraps (and GOPers to some extent). When a “dumbocrat” starts to understand, they start voting for individuals instead of the “ticket”. As understanding increases, they start switching to GOP.
Since we as Americans pay the Post Office for mailing they should have postmark dates on every piece of mail…………….
Ain’t gonna happen. See my earlier comment. Mail sorting is done by machine – NOT by individual postal employees. Massive “commercial types” are sent thru a different machine and workers are not responsible for stamping individual letters (or ballots).
It wasn’t the state of Wisconsin that wasn’t prepared for the primary, it was the DEMOCRAT PARTY that wasn’t prepared. The governor waited until the last minute to delay the primary. Then when he didn’t act in a timely fashion, he blamed the republicans for his own ineptitude. In Milwaukee, the democrat mayor couldn’t (???) staff polling places, so he closed the majority of them. All he needed to do was to staff those spots with furloughed city employees and these places could have stayed open. It was not the state but rather the inability of the democrat party to manage their own primary that was apparent in Wisconsin. It’s too bad the July democratic convention has been delayed. I would love to see what a disaster they make of that.
Betcha a large number of illegal votes won’t get counted.
Who cares it was vote for one loser or another,,,,,,