“Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here . The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin is challenging the state’s law governing voters’ ability to fix missing information on their absentee ballots, alleging that the law violates the Wisconsin Constitution by giving clerks a vast amount of discretion over whether to reject ballots. The group is asking a Dane County judge to require all clerks to provide voters notice when an absentee ballot certificate is lacking necessary information — such as a signature or the address of a voter or the person who witnessed the ballot’s casting — and give them an opportunity to add that information before rejecting the ballot, a process known as “curing” the ballot. Right now, the law tells clerks that they “may” return incomplete absentee ballots to voters. That results in some municipal clerks sending voters prompt notice about faulty ballots, while other clerks put those ballots in the rejected pile without informing the voter at all, the lawsuit states . Municipalities also treat absentee ballots differently depending on when they receive them, the lawsuit alleges, and those that arrive closer to Election Day often have a lesser chance of getting cured. The lawsuit, which names the Wisconsin Elections Commission as the defendant, argues that, without a blanket curing requirement, “mail-in absentee ballots are jeopardized by the lack of mandatory notice and curing opportunities across the state.” This case, which comes a few months ahead of Wisconsin’s 2026 primary election, is the latest in a long line of lawsuits over what to do when information is missing on absentee ballot certificates. In recent years, courts have allowed clerks to use their discretion to determine what constitutes a proper witness address but taken away their ability to fix missing information on the address form. “Right now, we have ballots that come in weeks ahead of the election, and they’re being set aside for rejection with no attempt by the clerk to contact the voter,” Debra Cronmiller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, told Votebeat. “If even one clerk is not curing ballots, that’s one clerk too many in a democratic system where voting is an absolute right,” Cronmiller said, adding that the number of clerks who fail to follow the practice could reach into the hundreds. While the lack of uniformity could create legal issues, clerks say a blanket curing requirement could be difficult to implement if courts maintain the state’s 8 p.m. Election Day deadline for receiving ballots as the deadline to cure those ballots, too. In 2024, Milwaukee received about 150 mail ballots just minutes before polls closed. At that late hour, it would have been virtually impossible for officials to notify those voters about any deficiencies with their ballots — much less give them a chance to cure them before the polls closed. Size and resource disparities between Wisconsin’s many municipalities would also present challenges to a uniform curing system. A part-time clerk working from home in a small rural town operates with dramatically fewer resources than election officials in Milwaukee, where thousands of absentee ballots can arrive on Election Day. Resources in both settings would be stretched by a uniform curing requirement, depending on how courts ultimately require it to be implemented. If courts grant the league some version of the relief it is seeking, questions about how the process would work in practice could also be settled in court. Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood, a Republican, said another complicating factor for clerks is that Wisconsin’s voter registration form doesn’t require registrants to provide their email addresses and phone numbers. Trueblood said she already tells the 60 municipal clerks in the county to try to cure ballots, but that process is harder when voters don’t provide contact information or when ballots are returned on Election Day. Requiring voters to provide their contact information would make a curing requirement a lot easier to comply with, she said. If such a requirement were imposed ahead of this year’s midterms, Trueblood said, bigger villages and cities would likely have the staff and resources to contact every voter, but for town clerks who work a different full-time job and spend just a few hours working as a clerk on weekends and evenings, “it could be a little more challenging.” Curing lawsuits play out in Wisconsin and across the nation Ballot curing practices vary widely across the country . Some states don’t allow curing at all. Others allow voters to cure absentee ballots well after Election Day if they’re missing a date, signature, address or something else. As arguments over voting practices increasingly head to court , lawsuits over ballot curing have played out across the nation. In Pennsylvania, for example, ballot curing is neither required nor prohibited under state law. Similar to Wisconsin, different counties have different curing practices — some allow voters to cure their ballots , while others don’t. In North Carolina, a robust curing process was created as the result of a lawsuit that mirrors the one in Wisconsin. It was brought by the League of Women Voters of North Carolina, among other groups, and relied on a similar allegation: that the lack of a statewide-mandated procedure to cure absentee ballots amounted to a denial of voters’ right to due process under the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit resulted in a settlement that created a curing requirement in every county. Now, voters have up to three days after Election Day to cure issues on their ballot. The ballot rejection rate has dropped dramatically as a result of the case, said Joselle Torres, a spokesperson for Democracy North Carolina, a voting rights group that joined the state’s league chapter in the case. But she added that state and local funding is crucial to educate poll workers, voters, and other election officials about the changes — “and that’s no small fee.” Marc Meredith, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania who researched ballot curing in North Carolina in the wake of the settlement, said he had initially expected under 50% of voters to fix their ballot or vote a new one. But ultimately, about 82% of the 26,000 voters eligible to cure their ballots did so. Many opted to vote a new ballot in person rather than fix their old one, he said. Curing has potential benefits but also challenges in Wisconsin The drastic increase in the number of voters curing their ballots in North Carolina may not be replicated in Wisconsin, where many municipalities already have curing notifications and procedures in place. Another difference is that North Carolina has 100 counties running elections, whereas Wisconsin has about 1,850 municipalities doing so. That could complicate implementation, Meredith said, because the same procedures would need to work in places ranging from Milwaukee to towns with 100 residents. “In the places that aren’t currently curing,” he added. “I would expect lots of voters would take opportunities to make corrections.” That issue of municipalities not curing ballots is especially pronounced in rural Wisconsin, Cronmiller said. There, part-time clerks don’t always have the bandwidth to return ballots to voters ahead of Election Day, she said. If courts call for a more stringent curing requirement, Cronmiller added, “it would force all municipalities to give resources sufficient to their clerks so they could do this work.” A requirement for clerks to tell voters can create practical issues in bigger cities, too, especially those that can receive thousands of ballots on Election Day. To get every last ballot cured, Wisconsin would likely have to implement a cure deadline after Election Day, Meredith said. “You don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, is my opinion on these things,” Meredith said. “There are going to be some things that will slip through the cracks, but … don’t let the fact that a few might slip through the cracks prevent you from putting that system in that way that would help the rest.” At the highest level, the League of Women Voters is seeking a declaration that Wisconsin’s discretionary ballot-curing law violates the state constitution, said Nina Beck, a counsel at the Fair Elections Center, which represents the league in Wisconsin and also represented the North Carolina league chapter in its lawsuit to create ballot-curing there. What’s required under the due process clause of the Wisconsin Constitution, Beck said, is adequate notice and the ability to cure a defect if clerks are otherwise denying people their fundamental right to vote. Instead, right now, clerks are dealing with curing in many different ways and may even be treating voters within the same municipality differently, she said. “That’s fundamentally unfair.” If the court sides with the league, the group will ask the court to set a uniform procedure for all clerks to follow, Beck said, adding that the current system is “kind of a free-for-all.” Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org .
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