Gov. Tony Evers is pushing back against arguments Madison city officials made in a recent lawsuit contending they can’t be sued for failing to count nearly 200 mail-in ballots in 2024 because absentee voting is not a right but a privilege.
A group of Madison voters represented by the liberal law firm Law Forward sued city and county election officials in March over the city’s failure to count 193 absentee ballots cast during the 2024 presidential election.
Attorneys for Witzel-Behl and the city have argued in court filings seeking to dismiss the case that, by voting absentee, the affected voters “exercised a privilege, rather than a constitutional right,” and there is no “legal basis upon which they could be entitled to monetary damages for the failure of defendants to properly count their absentee ballots.”
Evers, who does not take a position on any other dispute within the case, pushed back at that argument, writing in a statement that “Wisconsinites should have the opportunity to cast their ballot, and if they follow all of the rules, then their vote should count just like everyone else’s.”