Wisconsin's Democratically controlled capital is facing an investigation after 200 ballots went missing in the last election.
The Wisconsin Election Commission voted unanimously to open a probe into Madison's handling of the issue, which went unreported for more than a month.
This isn't the first time Madison, a liberal stronghold, has been at the center of an election controversy recently. The city admitted to mailing out 2,000 duplicate mail-in ballots in September, while absentee voting was underway.
The city clerk of Madison, Maribeth Witzel-Behl, is now facing the first-ever investigation from the state's bi-partisan election commission over 200 uncounted ballots. The oversight is so "egregious" that it must be looked into, the Democratic chair of the commission, Ann Jacobs, said.
“We are the final canvassers,” Jacobs said. “We are the final arbiters of votes in the state of Wisconsin and we need to know why those ballots weren’t included anywhere.”
Adding to the concern is the city's delay. Two separate batches of uncounted ballots were found in Madison on November 12 and December 3, but the commission was not informed of the discrepancy until December 18. The voters whose ballots were not counted will receive an apology letter, Witzel-Behl said.
"My biggest concern here is why it took a month and a half for this to come out. That's very, very disturbing and I'm hoping we can determine why that happened,” Republican commissioner Don Mills said.
President-elect Trump won Wisconsin by about 30,000 votes in November, representing the highest margin of any Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide. Democrat Kamala Harris won Madison overwhelmingly.
Milwaukee, another Democratic stronghold, recounted 30,000 votes on Election Night after ballot tabulators were left open. The elections commission may also look into that issue, the Center Square reported.
Despite hiccups in some states, Trump's decisive margin of victory and a smaller share of absentee ballots resulted in a smooth presidential election compared to 2020, when an unprecedented rise in mail-in voting led to long delays and suspicions of voter fraud.
Trump is returning to Washington with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, which will enable him to pursue election reforms he says are needed to protect the ballot.
“As we look to the new year with unified Republican government, we have a real opportunity to move these pieces of legislation not only out of committee, but across the House floor and into law,” Wisconsin Republican Bryan Steil, chair of the Committee on House Administration, said. "We need to improve Americans’ confidence in elections.”
