Process and went through the mechanics of how a potential recount would work. Election law is complex. Its our job to not just understand and implement the law with precision, but its also our job to explain the nuances of election to the public at a way thats approachable. As administrators, we cant change the law, the process. That can only be done by your elected lawmakers. As election administrators, we are the referees. We have to follow the rules prescribed by those you elect and we have an obligation to show you how we are doing that. So to that end, i wanted to answer questions weve been receiving in our office the last few days and provide you with updates, namely, lets discuss the unofficial turnout numbers, election day registration, and the mechanics of a recount. We have also put out a press release with this information and encourage you to share the facts with others who may have questions or concerns about the election process. So when it comes to voter unofficially, wisconsin voters cast 3,929,374 votes for president. That is the most ever in the state of wisconsin, exceeding the previous record of 3,071,434 set in 2012. That makes the unofficial turnout percentage of wisconsin, which has a voting age population of 4,536,417 voters the unofficial turnout percentage of that is 72. 67 . Now, its important to note, and ive heard questions about it, about this, that some jurisdictions choose to report their unofficial turnout as a percentage of registered voters. For example, if the city has 100,000 registered voters as they headed to the election, 10,000 new Voters Registered using election day registration, those jurisdictions will sometimes report 110 turnout. The state reports turnout of eligible voting population, which is that unofficial 72. 65 of wisconsins 4. 53 million eligible voters. So i think thats an important distinction, because again, these are unofficial results. And different jurisdictions are using different equations to come up with that percentage of unofficial voter turnout. But we use eligible voter population to make our unofficial determination. By law, the state of wisconsin , again, has election day registration. This means that voters who may not have registered previously can register to vote on election day. This increasess the number of Voter Registrations. When Voters Register on election day, they have to provide personally identifiable information and a proof of residence document. Their address is also verified by sending them a mailing. The local Election Officials are now in the process of certifying the election at the municipal, county, and then state level. Part of that process is double checking that every Voter Participation entered has a corresponding and valid Voter Registration. So in short, i am so proud of wisconsin voters, not just for the record numbers they turned out to participate, but for the peaceful and civil way they did so. I am proud of our local Election Officials and all workers. They followed the law. They were incredibly professional despite enormous pressure. The next question i would like to address is, did my vote count . Many voters are visiting our website to check their records. As allowed by state law, it can take up to 45 days for local clerks to record paper registrations into the electronic system. So please do not worry if you dont see your participation recorded right away. Your local election official is entering it and is double checking everything as part of the canvas and certification process right now. If you voted by absentee in the state of wisconsin, you can track your ballot on wisconsins. Wi. Gov. Myvote you will not see it until after the canvas and certification has been completed. And again, state laws explicitly spell out local Election Officials have up to 45 days to complete this process. All of the data as part of the election is required to be made available in the paper artifacts of the election and are required to be maintained as part of the documents retention laws. Next, a reminder to all of us to seek out official facts about elections. Please do not help to perpetuate rumors. I know everyone is very sionate about the election passionate, as they should be, about the election. We have an obligation to engage with the facts. I understand your right to vote is sacred. There is a very robust system that protects your vote and makes sure only valid ballots can be counted. Wisconsin voters and people across the country have questions about how wisconsins unofficial Election Results are reported because of the closeness of the results and the time it took for some of our municipal clerks to complete the counting of absentee ballots. The answer to this question is, because we followed the law. And the law says absentee ballots have to be received by 8 00 p. M. On election day to be counted. And counting cant begin until the polls open at 7 00 a. M. On election day. The law further says that every valid ballot has to be counted. Theres no cutoff time. And with almost 2 million absentee ballots that had to be counted, Election Officials took the time necessary to count each ballot in accordance with the very specific requirements of the law. And ill repeat this point again because i think it is so important. Every step of the election process is publicly observable and is transparent. This includes voting at the polls on election day and the counting of absentees. It also includes the canvas and certification of the tally that is happening right now in municipalities and counties across the state. Every ballot cast in the state of wisconsin has a paper audit trail. Every Voter Registration and absentee request is maintained and available during that public process. And to address some of the questions headon, wisconsin does not have more votes than registered voters. There were no absentee ballots found in the middle of the night. There were lawyers and observers from both parties on site and involved the entire time. That even includes at 4 00 a. M. When ballots were still being counted and polls were being posted. Clerks follow the law and they counted every ballot until they were done. I think its also worth noting, and we talked about this yesterday, that in wisconsin there are 39 municipalities, including any of wisconsins largest cities that use the process outlined in the law known as central count to count absentee ballots. This process is where all absentee ballots are counted at a Central Location rather than at each individual polling place. In these jurisdictions, you will see results from polling places posted while central count ballots are still being tallied. Only when central count is complete and every valid absentee ballot has been counted, can they post the central count numbers. This is why you will see a spike in ballots reported late in the process. Again, central count is publicly observable and representatives from both parties observe the tally of these ballots, including the verification of the results that were posted on Election Night and into wednesday morning. Adn the last topic id like to cover is recounts. According to the unofficial results from the county clerks website, the margin of victory between the past two president ial candidates is 20,470 votes, or. 62 . And that makes that race eligible for a recount. Because the margin is more than a quarter of a percent, the requesting candidate must prepay the estimated cost at the time of filing a recount if one were to be filed. A candidate cannot request a recount until after the last county reports the certified results to the state. For president ial recounts, the candidate has just one day to file for a recount. I have to apologize. Yesterday, i misspoke that the Wisconsin Legislature changed the deadline from three days to one following the 2016 president ial recount. If a recount is filed, we will provide a cost estimate and the candidate would be required to pay the estimated cost upon filing. Once this happens, the Wisconsin Elections commission would then order a recount. From there, the county Election Officials would have essentially 13 days to complete the recount and to submit the certified recount results to the commission. The commission would then certify the election based on the results of the recount. So while no recount has been requested at this point, our office is always preparing. So right now, were actively preparing that possibility and we will continue to coordinate with wisconsins 72 counties and clerks who would be primarily responsible in the event of a recount. So, i think that covers everything we wanted to address today and making sure we were addressing headon any questions or concerns about the process because, again, i think we as Election Officials have an obligation to make sure voters concerns are addressed and they have facts to answer their questions about how elections work in the state of wisconsin. Ill turn it back over to reed and with that, ill turn it back over to reed and asked for any questions. Thanks, megan. Before we start with the questions, i want to let you know im sorry i havent gotten back to you if you emailed me or called me in the last 24 hours. Im working my way through the stack but there is an awful lot of them. I will get back to you as soon as i can. For questions, first we have can you hear me . Yes. I can. Ok, great. I have two questions. One is, i know that Milwaukee County is doing their canvassing, started their canvassing this morning. Do you have a sense of how many counties usually tend to start at the same time versus waiting for the municipalities . In the second question is, if you could add any more details about how the wisconsin Election Mission is preparing the recount, or a possible recount. Thank you very much for those questions. Those would be about the canvas process and the noticing process. Again, that is a process established by each of the 1850 cities, towns, and villages and each of our 72 counties. They have to post notices. They dont report those notices to our office. So thats a process thats completely conducted by the municipalities and by the counties themselves. So, they would be the best source for the information. And in terms of details about the recount, you know, were always preparing for anything that might come our way. 2020 is the year we have seen everything that can happen in election administration, our way and weve needed to prepare for that. I think laying out the timeline, making sure we understand exactly what the timeline is, especially since the law did change a little since 2016. One of those tasks on the list is estimating cost. So, working with our local Election Officials to find out what their estimated costs would be to make sure were covering all the categories that might potentially come up. There are things well probably have to figure in in terms of large enough spaces for social distancing, things we didnt have in 2016. The law changed so our office can ask for costs associated with the recount. Thats probably the other piece were working on now, to understand how we would collect the information and try to get as accurate as we could. I think looking back at 2016, we had some recent experience with this and a lot we can do of. E can build off reed next is pat, followed by mary. Thanks for doing these. You touched on one of my questions, but i was curious to know if you have any sense of what the cost is going to look like. If not, do you remember what the cost was in 2016 . And can you roughly ballpark what the traditional cost would be when you factor in your office costs, as well . Meagan yeah, i really dont care to speculate ever about things like that because thats work that we need to do to make sure we understand what the costs would be. All the information from 2016 is posted on our website. You can find our cost estimate and you can find out what the final actual cost were in what categories. Were thinking through what are the other categories that might be different from 2016 to now. And one of the things that came to mind for me was things like renting larger spaces, potential for things like livestream of the recount because there might be limitations on how many observers can safely be there. You cant really be looking over someones shoulder like they were able to in 2016. There will be some differences but if you look back at that data from 2016, you will see a pretty Good Foundation we can now build upon to get more accurate estimates. And if i could follow up real quickly on the mechanisms on prepaying of the recount, how does that work . Do they make a payment directly to you based on the estimate and then you guys authorized the counties to go begin the count . Is that roughly how it works . Meagan yeah, so with the filing they would have to submit paper to our office by the deadline. Upon receiving the filing and the prepayment, the commission would then authorize the recount to start. And then from there, i believe the counties have three days to put the process in to start working on that. Thank you. Reed next is mary, followed by dakota. Hi, thanks for taking my questions. The Trump Campaign raised concerns about irregularities in several wisconsin counties and today, in a media call, said magical stacks of ballots were being found overnight. Were trying to check and see, have any formal complaints or any specific concerns been raised to your agency about anything like this . Meagan thanks for that question. So no, we have not received their word of any irregularities. Again, i know there were questions. I take these questions seriously when people see a spike that concerns them in the ballot totals being posted. Thats because of the central count. They all have to be counted until they are finished in the have to be reported at once. And thats where you see some of those spikes. There have been no problems reported to our office, no complaints filed with the office or any irregularities. Thank you. Reed dakota, youre next, followed by hannah. Hi, thank you for doing this. I just wanted to ask because absentee voting is pretty new for most people this year and the president has raised concerns over the validity. Can you go into it more how these ballots are certified and checked to make sure they are accurate . Meagan thank you. Yeah, thats great. I love those types of mechanical questions about the process. Let me give this a try from the start. First, they voter has to be registered to vote. So before you can request an absentee ballot, you have to be registered. When you register, you are affirming youre an eligible voter of the state of wisconsin, providing personal identifiable information, providing proof of residence document or matching data fields with the dmv. Registration is where you verify you are you and we verify you are you and we put you into the system. There is maintenance that goes on all the time. So if somebody becomes ineligible, lets say they become a felon or deceased, they are deactivated from the registration system. That happens every day where we keep up with those records. Thats a really important piece of it. Youve got to be registered and a lot goes into registration before you can request an absentee ballot. Then, if you want to request an absentee ballot, and wisconsin all voters have three options for casting their ballot. Absentee by mail, in person by absentee, or at the polls on election day. If you choose absentee by mail, then you have to make a request. And when you make your request, you have to provide information to your local Election Officials so they can find your Voter Registration record and make sure youre lawfully registered to vote. Then you have to provide a photo id. And thats kept on file as part of your record for the absentee process, as well. From there, it makes sure it has a clerk. We have 1850 cities, towns, villages that register absentee. When your request goes, he goes to a person in your community thats checking to make sure youre lawfully registered to vote, making sure you provide all the information, photo id, checking the requirements. They intentionally the decision if youre eligible to get absentee ballot. If you are, youre sent an absentee ballot. From there, the voter can cast their ballot by absentee in the presence of a witness. The voter has to sign the certification on the absentee envelope. And they also have to include have to have their witness sign and also to include their address. Your ballot is sent back to the clerk. I should also say during that submission process, we have barcodes on the mail process so you can track your absentee ballot. We in the system can take a look to make sure everything is reaching the milestones it should. If not, we can work with the voter to make sure they get a replacement ballot, as well. On the local Election Officials receives your ballot, they have to check into the system that it has been received. The information is part of your record. The clerk again has to make sure youre registered and they are also going to see the person already has an absentee request on file. So on election day, if you going to vote in person [no audio] pres. Trump thank you very much. Good evening. Id like to update the American People with our efforts to protect the election. If you count the legal
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.