Dane Co. Judge issues temporary order allowing email absentee voting for disabled voters

Chief Inspector Megan Williamson processes absentee ballots at the Hawthorne Library on Madison's East Side. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Dane County Judge Everett Mitchell issued a temporary injunction Tuesday that will allow voters with “print disabilities” to cast absentee ballots by email.

Mitchell’s order came in a lawsuit brought by Disability Rights Wisconsin, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and four voters with disabilities. The lawsuit alleges that the current absentee voting system discriminates against voters with disabilities such as blindness because they can’t cast their ballots without assistance under the current rules, violating the right to cast a secret ballot.

On Tuesday, Mitchell issued the temporary injunction, ordering the Wisconsin Elections Commission to “facilitate the availability of electronically delivered (i.e., emailed) accessible absentee ballots for the November 2024 general election for absent electors who self-certify to having a print disability and who request from their municipal clerk an electronically delivered absentee ballot in lieu of mailing.” The emailed ballots must be able to be read and marked electronically using assistive technology such as a screen reader.

Despite a request from the groups bringing the lawsuit that ballots be allowed to be returned electronically as well, the completed absentee ballots will still need to be printed and mailed back to voters’ municipal clerks, with Mitchell writing that the order “shall not be construed to permit electronic return of a marked absentee ballot.”

At a hearing on Monday, attorneys from the state Department of Justice pushed back on the request for email ballots, saying that the process opens the absentee system up to confusion and security risks just months before this year’s presidential election.

Assistant Attorney General Karla Keckhaver said at the hearing the ruling could cause confusion for the more than 1,800 local election clerks working to administer this year’s elections. She added that some clerks don’t use official government emails that don’t have the added security that a .gov address has and that there’s not enough time to train clerks before November on the change, including how to verify if a voter is disabled.

Keckhaver also pointed out that disabled voters’ assistants could be subject to criminal penalties if they divulge a person’s vote and that assistive technologies are available for in-person voting at the polls.

“The plaintiffs aren’t being forced to forfeit their right to vote,” she said. “They can vote the way they always have.”

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