FILE - Election officials read documents before a hand recount of ballots at the Wisconsin Center, Friday, Nov. 20, 2020, in Milwaukee, Wis. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
FILE - Poll workers sort out early and absentee ballots at the Kenosha Municipal Building on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Four Wisconsin voters whose ballots were not counted in the November presidential election initiated a class-action lawsuit Thursday seeking $175,000 in damages each.
The voters were among 193 in Madison whose ballots were misplaced by the city clerk and not discovered until weeks after the election. Not counting the ballots didn’t affect the result of any races.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission investigated but did not determine whether Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl failed to comply with state law or abused her discretion.
She didn’t notify the elections commission of the problem until December, almost a month and a half after the election and after the results were certified on Nov. 29.
The goal is to reinforce and strengthen the right to vote in Wisconsin, said attorney Jeff Mandell, who is general counsel of Law Forward, which filed claims against the city of Madison and Dane County on Thursday.
“When people’s votes are not counted, when the right to vote is violated, our democracy is diminished,” Mandell said during a news conference announcing the action.
The four affected voters are seeking $175,000 each from the city of Madison and Dane County. That is above the $50,000 maximum that can be sought in class-action lawsuits against municipalities.
The lawsuit will argue that the cap is unconstitutional, the notice of claim said.
The number of affected voters who could join the lawsuit might grow, Mandell said. All of the voters whose ballots were not counted are named in the notice made public Thursday.
Madison takes election integrity seriously, the city's spokesperson, Dylan Brogan, said in reaction. He noted that the clerk's office apologized for the error both publicly and to each affected voter.
The clerk's office has also taken steps to ensure the such a mistake won't happen again and looked forward to additional guidance from the state elections commission, Brogan said. He declined to comment specifically on the lawsuit.
The state elections commission is scheduled to discuss its investigation into the uncounted ballots on Friday.
According to a summary of its findings, the clerk didn’t explain what exactly happened at the polling places, how the uncounted ballots went unnoticed all day on Election Day or how they were misplaced.
She also hasn’t said whether she spoke to the chief inspectors in the affected wards to find out what happened, making it difficult to develop guidelines to help elections clerks throughout the state avoid similar issues, investigators said.
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