Wisconsin voters returned more than 117,000 absentee ballots before one of the front-runners in the governor’s race dropped out and another contender jumped back in — but a judge ruled Wednesday that those voters are not allowed to request new ones.
The ruling shut down a lawsuit filed by the state’s Democratic Party against the Wisconsin Elections Commission to allow the absentee voters to submit new ballots because of the race’s changing nature.
“The unambiguous language of the statute does not allow a voter to spoil an absentee ballot after it is returned,” Dane County Circuit Judge David Conway wrote in his ruling, referencing the guidance the state elections commission rolled out earlier this month on voters’ ability to receive new ballots.