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MADISON, WI (WSAU) – U.S. Congressman Tom Tiffany is requesting answers from the clerk of the city of Madison after it was revealed on Tuesday that thousands of duplicate absentee ballots were mailed out to voters in recent days.
According to the letter, Congressman Tiffany asked City Clerk Jim Verbick questions such as “How was the “error” discovered?” “Has the clerk’s office identified what person or persons are responsible for this “error”?” and “Has the clerk’s office taken steps to preserve all emails, internal communications, handwritten notes, and other records related to this “error”?” among others that include asking if law enforcement was asked to investigate the matter and how many duplicate ballots were exactly mailed out.
On Tuesday, Verbick confirmed to 27 News that at least 2,200 duplicate ballots were mailed out to voters and impacted up to 10 separate voting wards but claimed it was a simple human error, saying, “There was a human error that occurred; despite duplicate ballots being sent out, we will only accept one ballot from every voter, and when we get them back, we will make sure that we only have one ballot.”
“About 3,000 voters all use the same ballot style, and we had to separate it into two different files to cover that range based on the limitation of the files that we can pull out of the registration system. We tried to combine the two, and instead, one of them got copied instead of combined,” Verbick continued.
When asked about his response to Tiffany’s letter, Verbick told 27 News, “No comment.” He also stated that there would not be a third party looking into the error’s cause at this time, but should it get to that point, the clerk’s office would be willing to provide any information required.
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