As the city of Madison defends itself against lawsuits related to 193 absentee ballots that were not counted in the 2024 election, the city and its former clerk are offering a bizarre defense for the oversight. The defense comes amid issues with missing ballots and voter rolls in states across the country.
The city is arguing that the disenfranchisement of 193 residents did not violate their constitutional right to vote because absentee voting is a privilege, not a right.
“The fact that Plaintiffs’ ballots were not counted is unfortunate,” the filing states. “But it is the result of human error, not malice. And that human error was not a violation of the Plaintiffs’ constitutional right to vote.”
The argument is one that critics have called “offensive” and claim that it will not survive scrutiny in court. Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA Law School and expert on election law, said that while states are not required to offer absentee voting, they cannot disenfranchise voters once they have chosen that option.
“Once the state gives someone the opportunity to vote by mail,” he said, “then they can’t — as a matter of federal constitutional law — deprive that person of their vote because they chose a method that the state didn’t have to offer.”
The discrepancy is just one among many nationwide that have caused some to question the integrity of elections. (RELATED: Rep. Van Orden Says Anti-ICE Rhetoric Fueled Attack on Wisconsin Office)
In Oregon, the Secretary of State is being compelled to clean roughly 800,000 inactive voters from the rolls after lawsuits. (RELATED: “People Live in Homes, Not Corporations”: Trump Targets Wall Street Housing Takeover)
In another incident that has called the integrity of Maine’s absentee ballot process into question, 250 absentee ballots were mailed to a woman in an Amazon package in the weeks leading up to the 2024 election.
Both the Maine and Wisconsin incidents underscore a conflict between Republican and Democratic officials, where Republicans such as President Donald Trump have long contended that absentee ballots are not a secure and reliable way to cast votes, while Democrats defend the voting method as a way to ensure ballot access.
