The state Elections Commission has issued some guidance on how Outagamie County should deal with thousands of ballots that can’t be read by counting machines because of a printing error. This is commission chair, Dean Knudson
“Personally, I’m more comfortable with them using a Sharpie to correct the printing defect than I am with a group of harried, hassled workers trying to recreate and copy over and make new circles on a new ballot,” commissioner Dean Knudson said Tuesday. “I think the chance for a mistake in that is much greater.”
The commission only offered guidance: county officials can go to a judge for a decision on what to do. If not, poll workers would have to fill out new ballots to replace those that have printing errors.
An estimated 24,600 ballots had the error, although a portion of those were caught before being sent to absentee voters.