The Wisconsin Elections Commission should immediately eliminate the MyVote portal option that allows a user to direct an absentee ballot to be sent somewhere other than the elector’s registered address. That request was submitted Monday by The Republican Party of Wisconsin, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
The request comes on the heels of a Racine voter filling out online requests through the myvote.wi.gov website, requesting absentee ballots for several different Wisconsin voters, be sent to his address. Since this vulnerability was brought to light, the WEC has, so far, refused to update the website to fix this potential opportunity for voter fraud.
The vulnerability essentially allows any voter to request an absentee ballot for another voter, with just a name and address, have the ballot sent to an alternate address, and with the ability to self-certify as an “indefinitely confined voter”, the bad-faith actor can cheat the system. The request from the RPW, RNC and NRSC asks the WEC to remove that alternate address feature.
“This request is intended to ensure that ballots are sent only to the address on file for the registered voter. Without this suggested change, a voter may not be able to cast a ballot because someone already voted in their name,” said RPW Executive Director Mark Jefferson.
The WEC has the authority to remove this feature from the myvote.wi.gov site, because everything on the site is at the discretion of the WEC. With the recently publicized incident, RPW and the other parties are urging the WEC to remove the feature that has a minimal impact on the vast majority of absentee voters, which is now far outweighed by the potential for fraud that has been exposed.
“With this change to remove the ability for ballots to be sent somewhere other than the registered address, the worst thing that could happen is a voter receives an unrequested absentee ballot in their mailbox,” said Jefferson.
With the volume of absentee ballots that are requested through the myvote.wi.gov site, local election clerks, through no fault of their own, will not have the time to verify if indeed ballots are being sent to the registered voter, using an alternate address.
“We cannot allow any ambiguity when it comes to election integrity. This is a common sense proposal that ensures all voters can be confident when they go to the polls that their ballot will be counted, without having to worry their ballot may have already been stolen. A warning on the WEC website is not going to stop a bad-faith actor from committing a crime,” said Jefferson.
Click HERE to see RPW/RNC/NRSC Demands Letter to WEC