On Thursday, Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Paulina Gutierrez announced that hundreds of voters were silenced when their absentee ballots were delivered the day after Tuesday's election. Per Wisconsin state law, ballots have to be delivered by the time the polls close on Election Day.
Per Gutierrez, the election commission received only 20 absentee ballots from the United States Postal Service on Tuesday, which was Election Day in Wisconsin. This was despite having been in contact with USPS several times during the day. However, on Wednesday, USPS delivered 269 ballots to the election commission, through no fault of the voters who did everything they were supposed to do.
Gutiérrez said of the 269 ballots she received the morning after Election Day, 17 had no postal date and 252 had postmarks on or before April 6.
"We've never experienced this before where we got no ballots and then all of a sudden the first delivery in the morning is that many," she said.
"This is a smaller election too, so that number may be normal in like a presidential ... It's just completely unprecedented for us."
Similar problems were reported in Dane County, where they received 107 late ballots, even though some of them were postmarked as early as late March.
I'm sure that it's purely a coincidence that this is happening in the two biggest Democratic bastions in the state.
Postal authorities were blaming the delays on budget cuts, staffing shortages, and new rules that only slowed things down even more. Deliveries were taking days and even weeks longer than they were supposed to. Senator Tammy Baldwin has been trying to work with the Postmaster General, but to no avail.
Given all the information, as well as Trump's obsession with sabotaging the fall elections, it sure makes it seem like this was a trial run for the big show in November.
Meanwhile, election officials are encouraging people to use ballot drop boxes (which the Republicans also want to end) or send in ballots at least ten days before election day.
