MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The former clerk who somehow failed to count nearly 200 ballots in Wisconsin’s capital city didn’t break any laws but did violate multiple policies and her contractual duty to supervise elections and maintain professional standards, the results of a city-led investigation released Tuesday show.
Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl resigned earlier this month amid city and state investigations into her conduct during the November elections. She said in a message to The Associated Press that she hadn’t seen the investigation’s findings and declined to comment.
According to the investigation, Dane County canvassers discovered 68 uncounted absentee ballots in a tabulator bin on Nov. 12, a week after the election, and another 125 uncounted ballots in a courier bag the first week of December.
The investigation did not shed any light on how the ballots were missed, saying the mistake appears to have been “primarily a process and training failure that could have been avoided” by keeping logs of courier bags and sealed envelopes at the polling place and training poll workers on the types of courier bags used to transport absentee ballots.
Witzel-Behl’s office still had opportunities to count the ballots after they were discovered but never did, the investigation concluded. The office didn’t notify the Wisconsin Elections Commission of the oversight until Dec. 18, almost a month and a half after the election and well after results were certified on Nov. 29.
Witzel-Behl told investigators that she told two staff members to contact the commission on Nov. 12. But the staffers said she never directed them to do that. A staffer whose name was redacted from the investigative summary said that he tried to inform the Dane County Clerk’s office in-person on Nov. 13 but that office had no evidence that anyone presented the issue.
Witzel-Behl told investigators she wasn’t aware of any uncounted votes until the week of Dec. 10, even though she apparently sent an email to her staff on Nov. 27 to keep the ballots sealed and record the voters as having participated.
She said that her deputy clerk told her there were uncounted ballots during the week of Dec. 10. The deputy told investigators no such conversation took place.
The investigation concluded that Witzel-Behl didn’t break any state laws governing ballot processing, but she did violate employee policies as well as her own contract.
She failed to demonstrate care and efficiency in the performance of her duties, prepare her office to deal with significant election administration issues, provide clear direction on handling uncounted ballots and maintain processes that allow every legal vote to count, the investigation concluded.
Her failure to directly notify the county clerk, the state elections commission, the city attorney and the mayor’s office violated polices requiring employees to work efficiently and barring them from preventing others from carrying out their duties.
The uncounted votes would not have made a difference in any race or referendum question. But the investigators still called the oversight “an unprecedented failure of the election process.” Four voters whose ballots weren’t counted have filed claims for $175,000 each, the first step toward a class-action lawsuit.
The state elections commission’s investigation continues. Commission leaders announced earlier this month that they had deposed Witzel-Behl and planned to question more city workers.
