Voting booths in Kronenwetter. MWC file photo by Mike Leischner
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — After technology glitches showed themselves during last Tuesday’s election in Kronenwetter, the Marathon County Clerk is investigating another irregularity.
A batch of ballots was delivered to the courthouse last week without a proper tamper-evident seal, something Kim Trueblood says is a basic part of the end-of-day procedures for any poll worker. “In the election day manual that all inspectors have at their polling places, there is a checklist for the end of the night. [That includes] sealing the ballot bags with a tamper-evident seal before they sign the bags. You put the ballots in the bag, you seal them up, and then you sign them. So that critical step was missed.”
Trueblood says the seal is a vital step for election integrity and something that should be witnessed by all the election workers in the room. It shows that ballots were taken from the tabulator and transferred to the bag and that no ballots could be discarded or added after the fact.
In response to the incident, Trublood is requesting information from the poll workers regarding their normal end-of-day process. “We are curious if their normal process [involves] putting the ballots in the bag, signing them, and then the Clerk seals them up before they come to the Courthouse. And if their process is they put the ballots in the bag, seal it, and then sign off- why that process wasn’t followed this time around.”
Kronenwetter Clerk Jennifer Poyer has also submitted a sworn statement regarding where the ballots were kept and who may have had access to them while they were unsealed.
The incident will guide Trueblood’s election training regimen this fall. “We’re going to start from square one, baseline training. Everyone is going to go back to the beginning with a refresher of the process so that everything is done correctly going forward.
“Re-emphasizing what the process should be and strong encouragement that the process is followed going forward,” added Trueblood.
RELATED: Kronenwetter Extends Polling Hours To 9 P.M. After Technical Issues Cause Long Lines
Trueblood and Poyer are also working with the Wisconsin Elections Commission to diagnose a technical issue that caused the village’s Badger Books to crash on election day. The issue led to long wait times during the morning hours. Election workers switched to paper books to check in voters, and both Clerks petitioned a Judge for an extra hour of voting to allow everyone who wanted to cast a ballot the chance to do so.
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