Only registered Wisconsin voters can use Wisconsin’s MyVote website to request absentee ballots by mail.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission told Wisconsin Watch that MyVote does not automatically send an absentee ballot to the requester. Requests generate an email to the requester’s municipal clerk, who determines whether the voter has provided information, including a photo ID, to receive an absentee ballot.
MyVote is the most common way Wisconsin voters request absentee ballots.
Wisconsin-based HOT Government, which alleged fraud in Wisconsin in the 2020 election, falsely claimed Nov. 2, 2024, that “anybody from around the world” can use MyVote to “illegally order absentee ballots for anyone and ship the ballots anywhere in the world.”
In 2022, the organization’s president Harry Wait was charged with four crimes for allegedly using MyVote to request absentee ballots for two Wisconsin elected officials be mailed to his Racine-area home. The case is pending.
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Lisa Posthumus Lyons, the Republican clerk for Kent County, Mich., has to remind voters that elections are run by people and mistakes can occur; it doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy. In the final days of the election, local election officials are busy dispelling rumors and misinformation. (Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline)
In the final days of the presidential election, lies about noncitizens voting, the vulnerability of mail-in ballots and the security of voting machines are spreading widely over social media.
Fanned by former President Donald Trump and notable allies such as tech tycoon Elon Musk, election disinformation is warping voters’ faith in the integrity of the democratic process, polls show, and setting the stage once again for potential public unrest if the Republican nominee fails to win the presidency. At the same time, federal officials are investigating ongoing Russian interference through social media and shadow disinformation campaigns.
The “firehose” of disinformation is working as intended, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that advocates for responsible use of technology in elections.
“This issue is designed to sow general distrust,” she said. “Your best trusted source is not your friend’s cousin’s uncle that you saw on Twitter. It’s your local election official. Don’t repeat it. Check it instead.”
With early voting ongoing, local officials such as Travis Doss in Augusta, Georgia, say they are fighting a losing battle against fast-moving social media rumors.
Doss, the executive director of the Richmond County Board of Elections, said many voters in his county do not believe absentee ballots are counted properly. Many think election officials are choosing which ballots to count based on the neighborhood from where they’re sent, or that voting machines are easily hacked.
In recent weeks, Doss himself heard a rumor that a local preacher told his entire congregation to register to vote again because the preacher had heard — falsely — that everyone had been removed from the voter registration rolls.
“Somebody hears something and then they tell people, and it’s the worst game of telephone tag there ever is,” Doss said. “It’s so hard to correct all the misinformation because there’s so many things out there that we don’t even know about.”
As early voting began in mid-October in Georgia, Doss had to remind some voters that poll workers would observe the polling place and election equipment all day, ensuring no one tampered with the process. He noted that the tabulation machines are not connected to the internet, nor are they being hacked. He also had to emphasize that the ballot drop boxes were sealed and secure.
The amount of disinformation spreading throughout the country is immense.
College students in Wisconsin have been targeted with text messages meant to intimidate them into not voting, even when they’re eligible. The Michigan State Police had to correct rumors that people were unlawfully tampering with voting machines in one precinct, when it was actually two clerk’s office employees testing the ballot tabulating devices. Scammers posing as election officials have been calling Michigan voters claiming they must provide their credit card and Social Security numbers to vote early.
“In order to protect our democracy, we must address the mis- and disinformation that is spreading like wildfire,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP.
Ongoing lies
Musk, the owner of the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), has gorged on a smorgasbord of common election conspiracy theories. At a recent Trump rally in Pennsylvania, he falsely insinuated that voting machines designed by Dominion Voting Systems could steal this election from Trump. Dominion successfully sued Fox News and others for promoting that lie after the 2020 election.
Last month, Musk posted that Democrats are expediting citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally so the party could get a permanent electoral advantage. Journalists have thoroughly debunked his claim. Trying to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment to motivate voters to the polls, Trump and his allies have for months repeated the lie that noncitizens are voting in droves.
Musk shared a bogus claim about widespread voter fraud in a Wisconsin county in the 2020 election. The targeted jurisdiction, Henrico County, posted a thread on X correcting Musk’s assertions with data. Musk also amplified a claim that Michigan’s voter rolls were packed with inactive voters and ripe for fraud. Top state officials had to rebut those false claims too.
“The most dangerous and effective thing is that retweet button,” said Jay Young, senior director of voting and democracy at Common Cause, a national voting rights group that has a social media monitoring program tracking online disinformation.
Beyond Musk’s posts, disinformation has thrived on X.
Your best trusted source is not your friend’s cousin's uncle that you saw on Twitter. It’s your local election official.
– Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting
The American Sunlight Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that fights misleading information and is run by the former head of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security disinformation team, released a report this month on the scope of the problem. The report found that nearly 1,200 likely automated accounts on X are spreading Russian propaganda and pro-Trump disinformation about the presidential election.
American spy agencies believe the Kremlin is actively pushing election disinformation this year.
And nearly half the Republican candidates running for top state offices or Congress have questioned the integrity of this year’s election, primarily through social media, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Many of the candidates’ posts include falsehoods.
Sustained lies about election integrity have consequences: State and local election officials have been bombarded by threats and harassment this year, and confidence in elections has plummeted.
According to an October NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, more than 3 in 4 Americans remain confident or very confident that state and local agencies will carry out a fair and accurate election.
Still, 58% of Americans say they are concerned or very concerned that voter fraud will occur this year. Among Republicans polled, 86% are concerned about fraud, while 55% of independents and 33% of Democrats have a similar fear.
How officials respond
Over the past four years of going to town hall meetings and other community events throughout Oconto County, Wisconsin, on the western shore of Green Bay, County Clerk Kim Pytleski has repeatedly heard from voters who say that because their preferred candidate did not win in 2020, there must be something wrong with the electoral process.
Presented with conspiracy theories, Pytleski, a Republican, doesn’t just tell voters they’re wrong; she asks where the voter got that information, and then she walks them through the specific concern with step-by-step details about the voting process.
One concern that often comes up: the volume of absentee ballot applications voters receive in the mail. Many residents think the applications are actual ballots that can be marked and returned.
Voters will claim if there were that many ballots being sent, there must be election fraud, she said. Pytleski has had to explain that those were applications, and they were coming from political parties and other groups. Voters can only receive one ballot from her office, she will tell them.
“And when we’ve explained that, for the most part, people are like, ‘OK, that makes sense. I get that,’” she said during an interview in August.
Touching her right hand to her heart and raising her hand to the sky, Pytleski said she’s a dedicated member of the Republican Party, like most of the county’s voters. But it has been challenging for her to go to those meetings and feel voters’ suspicion. She’s even been called a liar to her face.
“I’m walking into a room that feels not so super-friendly, and I have to remind them that this is the girl that rode the bus route with your children, this is the girl who grew up in that house down the road,” she said. “My name means something to me, so I would never do anything to jeopardize that or the actual process.”
Misinformation can arise after local election offices err in some way, whether it was a misprint on a ballot, an electrical power outage at a polling place or something else.
Lisa Posthumus Lyons, the Republican clerk for Kent County, Michigan, regularly reminds voters that elections are run by humans and humans make mistakes, but that there are checks and balances in place to ensure elections remain secure and transparent, she said.
On her desk, a decorative sign reminds her to “Serve the Lord with Gladness.” She said she hopes voters will share her optimism and faith in the system.
“Their rights are going to be protected, their votes are going to be counted, the election is going to be accurate and fair, and we’re going to have a good day,” she said. “Anything that arises, we’ll be ready for it. It’s as simple as that.”
Beyond listening to local election officials, voters can rely on election protection hotlines run by experts and pro-democracy advocates, said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national legal advocacy group.
The committee is one of many voting rights groups in a coalition that is leading the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline this election season. The groups run similar hotlines for people who speak Spanish, Arabic and around 10 Asian languages.
With all the hotlines, Hewitt said, voters can call with questions or concerns about their access or about election procedures.
“This is something that we attend to not just when there’s a problem, but it’s something that we try to get ahead of,” he said. “We’re there to help guide them every step of the way.”
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.
A Wisconsin district attorney said Thursday that her office is pursuing an investigation into the removal of an absentee ballot drop box by the mayor of Wausau.
Mayor Doug Diny removed the drop box, located outside of City Hall, on Sunday and distributed a picture of himself doing it while wearing worker’s gloves and a hard hat. Diny is a conservative opponent to drop boxes. He insists he did nothing wrong.
The drop box was locked, and no ballots were in it. The city clerk notified Marathon County District Attorney Theresa Wetzsteon, and she said in an email on Thursday that she is requesting an official investigation with the assistance of the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
Wetzsteon said she was waiting to hear back from DOJ on her request.
A spokesperson for DOJ did not immediately return a message Thursday.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers weighed in on Thursday, calling the removal of the drop box “wrong.” Evers said it should be restored “immediately”:
“Drop box voting is safe, secure, and legal,” Evers posted on the social media platform X. “As elected officials, we should be working to make it easier—not harder—for every eligible Wisconsinite to cast their ballot. That’s democracy.”
The incident is the latest example in swing state Wisconsin of the fight over whether communities will allow absentee ballot drop boxes. The Wisconsin Supreme Court in July ruled that drop boxes are legal, but left it up to local communities to decide whether to use them.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The mailing of about 2,200 duplicate absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s heavily Democratic capital city of Madison has led a Republican member of Congress to falsely suggest that the clerk was lying about the presence of barcodes on the ballots themselves.
Ballots in Wisconsin do not contain barcodes. Envelopes that absentee ballots are returned in do contain barcodes so the voter can track their ballot to ensure it was received. The barcodes also allow election officials to ensure that the same voter does not cast a ballot in person on Election Day.
An initial statement on Monday from Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl did not specify that it was the envelopes, not the ballots, that contain the barcodes. The statement posted on the clerk’s website was later updated to specify that the barcodes were on the envelopes, not the ballots.
Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany, a strong Donald Trump supporter whose northern Wisconsin district does not include Madison, posted a picture of an absentee ballot on the social platform X to show there was no barcode.
“My office has proof that there is no barcode on the actual ballots,” Tiffany posted on Wednesday. “Here is a picture of the absentee ballots – NO BARCODE.”
He also called for an investigation.
By Thursday morning his post had more than 1.6 million views.
Tiffany later took credit for the clerk changing the wording on her initial statement.
“Why do they keep editing their statements and press releases?” Tiffany posted.
Madison city spokesperson Dylan Brogan said Thursday that he altered the wording of the statement for clarity before Tiffany questioned it by “parsing apart sentences.”
“The city routinely updates its website to provide as much clarity as possible,” Brogan said.
He called the mailing of duplicate absentee ballots “a simple mistake that we immediately rectified and it will have no impact on the election.”
“There are safeguards in place,” Brogan said. “The system worked.”
Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, rebuked Tiffany on X.
“I can’t tell if this is just profound lack of knowledge or the intentional farming of outrage,” she posted. “Both, by the way, are bad.”
The clerk said in her response to Tiffany that 2,215 duplicate ballots were sent before the error was caught on Monday. No duplicate ballots have been returned, Witzel-Behl said. Once a ballot is received and the envelope barcode is scanned, if a second ballot is returned it will not be counted, she said.
“I would simply note that elections are conducted by humans and occasionally human error occurs,” she wrote to Tiffany. “When errors occur, we own up to them, correct them as soon as possible, and are transparent about them – precisely as we have done here.”
The dustup in battleground Wisconsin comes as there is intense scrutiny over how elections are run, particularly in swing states that are likely to decide the winner of the presidential election. Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020. Nearly four years later, conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election and false claims of widespread fraud persist. Trump continues to insist, despite no evidence of widespread fraud, that he won that election as he seeks a return to the White House.
President Joe Biden’s win over Trump in Wisconsin survived two recounts ordered by Trump, including one involving the city of Madison, an independent audit, a review by a Republican law firm and numerous lawsuits.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Sign for the Wisconsin Elections Comission. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
The Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) on Tuesday delayed taking action on two complaints against municipal clerks for not following state and federal laws guiding the return of absentee ballots.
A complaint against the city of Greenfield alleges that the local clerk created separate deadlines for disabled voters’ lawfully designated assistants to return absentee ballots. State law gives absentee voters until polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day to bring their ballot to their designated polling place and drop it off.
In Greenfield, a man returning his wife’s ballot because of her disability was turned away and sent to the clerk’s office because of a local policy that states someone returning another voter’s ballot must take it there.
A separate complaint was filed against the city of Brookfield alleging that the city refused to accept any absentee ballots at polling places and instead required them to be returned to the clerk’s office with enough time for the clerk to bring the ballot to the correct polling place to be counted. The man who brought the complaint alleges that when he arrived at the polling place around 5 p.m. he was told he must bring his ballot to the clerk’s office but that no one would be there to receive it because city staff was in a meeting.
With less than 50 days until the election, Brookfield has drawn other criticisms over its absentee voting policies after the city council voted not to allow the use of absentee ballot drop boxes to collect ballots. A group of voting rights focused organizations held a press conference in the city Tuesday to protest that decision.
At the WEC meeting Tuesday afternoon, which at times grew heated, Republican commissioners questioned if it was possible to create a system that perfectly accommodates voters with disabilities returning their ballots while allowing clerks to affirm that people who have permission to assist a disabled voter are returning another person’s ballot.
“We cannot make this world perfectly equitable for all,” Commissioner Don Millis said.
Republican Commissioner Robert Spindell drew repeated pushback from the Democrats on the commission for arguing that whatever the body decides, it has to make sure it doesn’t encourage “ballot harvesting” — a practice that is prohibited by state law involving organizations gathering and returning large amounts of absentee ballots — which Republicans regularly warn against without much evidence that is widespread. .
The Democrats on the commission also said that the state has had the same interpretation of the absentee ballot statutes since long before WEC was created in 2015 — that voters can return their ballots until polls close at 8 p.m. on Election Day. Commission Chair Ann Jacobs pointed out that the Uniform Voting Instructions, approved by the commission last year and made mandatory for clerks to follow, reaffirm that longstanding interpretation of statute.
“I’m sort of floored that, coincidentally, in a political year, there’s attacks on absentee voting,” Jacobs said. “Suddenly, we’re changing our minds on the rules. I’m just flabbergasted by that. We made those instructions mandatory, and it tells every absentee voter in this state that they can take their absentee ballot to the poll site.”
The Republicans on the commission signaled they’d be unwilling to vote to accept the complaints against the two cities while the Democrats said they didn’t want to take a vote that would upend the interpretation of the uniform voting instructions so close to the election, with hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots already sent to voters with those instructions included on the envelope.
“I am extremely against even the consideration of us undoing our uniform instructions prior to Nov. 4, when we have — what is it? — as of this morning, 450,000 ballots out with our uniform instructions,” Jacobs said.
The commission ultimately voted to delay the consideration of the complaints until after the election.
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