Sign for the Wisconsin Elections Comission. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted unanimously Monday to modify its order imposing a number of requirements on the Madison city clerk’s office due to the loss of nearly 200 absentee ballots in the 2024 election. 

In August, the commission ordered the city to make a number of changes to its election practices in an effort to prevent the loss of future ballots. 

The original order requires the city to develop an internal plan delineating which employee is responsible for statutorily required tasks, change the absentee ballot processing system so bags and envelopes aren’t lost, update instructional materials for poll workers and complete a full inspection of all materials before the scheduled board of canvassers meeting after an election. 

In a special meeting on Monday, the commission voted 6-0 to approve a request from newly appointed clerk Clerk Lydia McComas to modify a section of the order about the timing of printing and preparing poll books. 

Under the original order, Madison is required to print its poll books no earlier than the Tuesday before an election and must arrange to receive those books no later than the Friday before the election. 

McComas told the commission in a memo that the city had found a vendor that could print the poll books on the Friday before an election and deliver them by the Sunday before the election. This would allow the final printed poll books to include as many absentee ballots as possible, limiting the number of absentee ballots that are returned after the poll books are printed. 

In her memo, McComas wrote that the modification would allow the city to achieve its “shared goal” with the commission of reducing “the chance of human error.”