GLENDALE, Wis. — The City of Glendale sees dozens of absentee-by-mail ballots come in after the deadline even though they were mailed weeks ago. None of those votes can be counted.
All 75 ballots mailed in by Glendale voters will not count. It has Glendale Mayor Brian Kennedy upset.
“Don't disenfranchise 75 voters in a low turnout election,” said Kennedy.
He says while those 75 votes would not change the outcome of any race in this election, he worries about the upcoming spring election in April.
Watch: Rebecca explains
Kennedy says the ballots that arrived late made up more than two percent of the city’s total vote. They all came into the city clerk the day after Election Day, despite being mailed on time.
Two of the ballots had postmarks from Feb. 8 and were sent from San Diego. A ballot postmarked Feb. 9 was mailed from Milwaukee.
"They played by the rules and did exactly what was instructed by the Wisconsin Election Commission and under state law by court decision and they followed the rules and now their vote is not going to count,” said Kennedy.
We checked with municipalities around the area and none reported ballots postmarked before Election Day. Although, several received ballots postmarked on Election Day.
Cedarburg reported three ballots arrived after Election Day, Greenfield reported 30, the City of Racine had nine, and the City of Milwaukee saw approximately 350 ballots.
"Unfortunately, we always see several hundred ballots coming in the day after the election in the City of Milwaukee. Prior to 2016, we had something called late arriving absentee, which was the deadline, was a postmark date. So long as we received the ballot by Friday, it would be counted. And then the Legislature changed that in 2016,” said Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.
Glendale’s clerk said officials tried to go directly to the post office and pick up any absentee ballots that were in circulation but were told there were not any.
Milwaukee and Racine said they did the same thing and the post office delivered hundreds of absentee ballots to them. Milwaukee says it received 1,500 absentee-by-mail ballots on Election Day.
"Ever since 2020, April of 2020, when we saw lots of major issues with the postal service right at the onset of the pandemic, we really worked on our communication,” said Woodall-Vogg.
TMJ4 reached out to the US Postal Service to see what happened in Glendale but have not heard back.
For the spring election, officials say to mail in your ballot at least a week ahead of time to make sure your vote is counted. If you want to track a ballot that you did mail, visit MyVote.wi.gov.