Voter concerned about ballot handling at Wauwatosa school

A poll worker at Whitman Middle School in Wauwatosa pulled ballots out of a ballot machine that was not working for a short time Tuesday morning. Voter Elaina Meier took these pictures when she saw the ballots handled in what she called a haphazard manner. Credit: Elaina Meier

By Meg Jones of the Journal Sentinel

When Elaina Meier stopped at Whitman Middle School in Wauwatosa to vote Tuesday morning, she saw an election worker pull a pile of ballots out of a machine and stack them haphazardly in a corner. A file was put on top of them as a weight.

Meier, who taught political science at Wauwatosa East High School for a decade, thought something was amiss.

When she cast her vote around 8:20 a.m., the ballot machine was still not working. She was told to place her ballot in a secure box.

After leaving the school, 11100 W. Center St., she called the city clerk's office.

"They indicated they resolved the problem with the ballot box and that there are times when ballots need to be taken out of the box but they're secured. I told them they were definitely not secured," Meier said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon.

Meier called the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board and talked to Mike Haas, who told her election workers are trained to always have two inspectors, if possible, handle ballots.

"It's not unusual for them to have to empty the ballot box when it gets full," Haas, the GAB's elections division administrator, said Tuesday afternoon. "The voter told me she thought the inspector was handling them haphazardly, setting them back behind the workers and were not secure."

GAB employees talked to the Wauwatosa city clerk, who by then had talked to the poll workers at Whitman, reminding them to secure ballots in a ballot bag, which is documented on the inspector's log at the polling place.

Wauwatosa City Clerk Carla Ledesma had not seen the photos Meier snapped of the ballots being handled by the poll worker but said "it was a problem with the power supply and not the machine and it was taken care of very quickly." It does not appear that ballots at Whitman Middle School were not counted or were discarded.

About Meg Jones

Meg Jones is a general assignment reporter who specializes in military and veterans issues. Meg was part of a team that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2003, and is the author of “World War II Milwaukee.”

• @MegJonesJS
• mjones@journalsentinel.com
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