4 Wisconsin voters whose ballots were not counted within the November presidential election initiated a class-action lawsuit Thursday looking for $175,000 in damages every.
The voters had been amongst 193 in Madison whose ballots had been misplaced by town clerk and never found till weeks after the election. Not counting the ballots didn’t have an effect on the results of any races.
The Wisconsin Elections Fee investigated however didn’t decide whether or not Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl did not adjust to state legislation or abused her discretion.
She didn’t notify the elections fee of the issue till December, nearly a month and a half after the election and after the outcomes had been licensed on Nov. 29.
The objective is to bolster and strengthen the fitting to vote in Wisconsin, stated lawyer Jeff Mandell, who’s common counsel of Legislation Ahead, which filed claims in opposition to town of Madison and Dane County on Thursday.
“When folks’s votes aren’t counted, when the fitting to vote is violated, our democracy is diminished,” Mandell stated throughout a information convention saying the motion.
The 4 affected voters are looking for $175,000 every from town of Madison and Dane County. That’s above the $50,000 most that may be sought in class-action lawsuits in opposition to municipalities.
The lawsuit will argue that the cap is unconstitutional, the discover of declare stated.
The variety of affected voters who may be a part of the lawsuit may develop, Mandell stated. The entire voters whose ballots weren’t counted are named within the discover made public Thursday.
Madison takes election integrity significantly, town’s spokesperson, Dylan Brogan, stated in response. He famous that the clerk’s workplace apologized for the error each publicly and to every affected voter.
The clerk’s workplace has additionally taken steps to make sure the such a mistake received’t occur once more and seemed ahead to further steering from the state elections fee, Brogan stated. He declined to remark particularly on the lawsuit.
The state elections fee is scheduled to debate its investigation into the uncounted ballots on Friday.
Based on a abstract of its findings, the clerk didn’t clarify what precisely occurred on the polling locations, how the uncounted ballots went unnoticed all day on Election Day or how they had been misplaced.
She additionally hasn’t stated whether or not she spoke to the chief inspectors within the affected wards to search out out what occurred, making it troublesome to develop pointers to assist elections clerks all through the state keep away from related points, investigators stated.
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