MADISON – Wisconsin election officials will be required to email absentee ballots to voters who are unable to vote independently, under a new ruling by a Dane County judge.
Dane County Circuit Judge Everett Mitchell on Tuesday ordered clerks to allow voters with disabilities, such as blindness or physical impairments that limit manual dexterity, to vote electronically, including through screen readers. The temporary order applies to the Nov. 5 election.
Voters will still be required to return their ballots by mail or in person, not by email.
The ruling comes less than six months before Wisconsin is set to play a key role in the next presidential election, once again turning the battleground state into a potentially partisan fight over voting rules.
For now, the case has changed the voting experience for people with disabilities, and unless it is appealed to a higher court, state election officials will need to move quickly to implement the Mitchell decision.
Judge Mitchell issued his ruling following a hearing on Monday in which plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by groups representing disabled voters argued that disabled people are denied the right to a secret ballot because they are unable to independently receive and mark their ballots.
State Justice Department lawyers representing the Wisconsin Elections Board argued the measure could create security risks and give elections boards less time to implement it.
Previously, state law only allowed voters in the military and overseas to submit their ballots electronically.
In April, four Wisconsin voters with disabilities who cannot read or fill out their own ballots sued the state elections board, seeking the right to vote privately through electronic absentee ballots.
They filed the lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court along with the Wisconsin Disability Rights Association and the liberal League of Women Voters.
“While it’s a good step for voters to be able to vote confidentially and independently, it’s certainly not the end goal,” Lisa Hasenstab, public policy manager for the Wisconsin Disability Rights Coalition, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “The end goal is to really make the whole process accessible to voters with print disabilities, from receiving their ballot to returning it.”
Rachel Hale can be contacted at [email protected]