On Sep. 23, 2024, election officials in Madison, Wisconsin, announced they had mistakenly sent duplicate absentee ballots to around 2,000 voters. "The Clerk's office has been contacting voters individually to inform them of the error, caution them to submit only one ballot, and to destroy the second one to avoid any confusion," their initial statement read.
The disclosure was amplified by conservative media, which suggested the incident could allow for duplicate voting and presented evidence of a link between potential voter fraud and mail-in voting.
The most-significant questions revolved around the possibility of people voting twice, thanks to receiving multiple ballots. In their initial statement, Madison officials said this was not possible because the barcodes on the ballots were identical:
Because the duplicate ballots have identical barcodes, in the unlikely event that a voter submits two absentee ballots, only one can be counted. Once that barcode is scanned, the voting system does not allow a ballot with the same barcode to be submitted.
On Sep. 25, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, whose district does not include Madison, posted a picture of a ballot on X, suggesting he had caught election officials in a lie over the existence of a barcode:
As Madison officials later clarified, the aforementioned barcode is on the envelope used to return the ballot by mail, not the pages on which voting selections are made. "They claimed it was on the ballot, and only changed their quote after we exposed it," Tiffany stated in response to backlash about his barcode claim.
As reported by The Associated Press, election officials say it is common to refer to use the term "ballot" as inclusive of the envelope:
Kevin Kennedy, who was Wisconsin's top elections official for 33 years and is currently a member of three nonpartisan boards that work in elections, said using the term "ballot" when actually referring to the envelope is commonly done both by election workers and the public.
"If that's the strength of your argument, focusing on someone misspeaking, that's not the issue," Kennedy said. "It probably says more about the motives of the speaker if that's what they're going to focus on."
On X, Snopes asked Tiffany why he felt such a distinction was meaningful, given the fact that absentee ballots are not complete without the identifying barcode, and that an envelope is necessary for a ballot to be counted. He did not respond to our request for comment.
How Did This Happen?
Madison officials say they discovered the problem when voters alerted them that they had received more than one ballot. After investigating, they found that human error during a data importation caused the duplicates to be sent to 2,215 voters across 10 voting wards.
"The affected ballots were limited to a single file with a single header code. We have checked and verified that no other batches were duplicated, nor have we received any reports from other voters," the Madison Clerk's Office said in response to Tiffany's inquiries.
How Does Absentee Voting Work in Wisconsin?
In Wisconsin, anyone can request an absentee ballot for any reason. Those who choose this can use "the pre-addressed, postage-paid envelope included with your ballot packet" to send the ballot to election officials, drop it off in person at the county clerk's office or physically take it into the voting precinct on Election Day. Voters must have a U.S. citizen witness sign that same envelope:
Before you begin, line up a witness who can verify that you filled out your own ballot. Choose an adult U.S. citizen who is not a candidate in the upcoming election. Next, fill out your ballot carefully. Once your ballot is complete, place it in the certified envelope. Then seal and sign the certificate envelope, and make sure your witness adds their address and signature, too.
The necessity of an envelope is not some new invention, nor is the notion that a completed ballot explicitly includes an envelope. The photo below is an envelope from a 2020 Wisconsin election (barcode in red):
State law explicitly references the envelope as a requirement for absentee voting:
The absent elector, in the presence of the witness, shall mark the ballot in a manner that will not disclose how the elector's vote is cast. The elector shall then, still in the presence of the witness, fold the ballots so each is separate and so that the elector conceals the markings thereon and deposit them in the proper envelope.
"No ballot is counted without being enclosed in a certificate envelope," Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said in an email.
What Prevents Duplicate Voting?
Merely possessing a duplicate ballot, in other words, does not afford someone the ability to vote twice. If someone sent in both of their ballots before the election — as Madison officials have already clarified — the first ballot would be scanned and the voter would be recorded in the ward poll book as having voted.
Any additional ballot would also be assigned the same number in the poll book, and it would not be counted. "Once a ballot from a voter has been marked as returned on the poll list," Witzel-Behl told Snopes, "any subsequent ballot from the same voter would be rejected."
Some people online claimed there is a loophole if you return your absentee ballot on Election Day itself. Under this theory, someone could return a completed envelope to a polling place and vote prior to it being scanned by the system.
This, too, is impossible. That's because absentee ballots received on Election Day are not scanned until after in-person voting is over. Your in-person vote would be logged in the poll book, thus preventing the counting of the absentee ballot. Witzel-Behl explained:
If a ballot is delivered directly to the polling place, the barcode is not scanned on Election Day but is scanned after Election Day to track voter participation and the status of the ballot. The election inspectors read the name and address that the Clerk's Office preprinted on the return envelope and check that against the poll book. Once a ballot from a voter has been marked as returned on the poll list, any subsequent ballot from the same voter would be rejected.
The Bottom Line
There is no way to vote twice in Wisconsin, even if you have two copies of the same absentee ballot.
The claim that county officials lied about the existence of barcodes on ballots is belied by the long-documented history — and legal requirement — that Wisconsin absentee ballots include an outer envelope with a witness statement. The envelope, which contains a unique barcode, is an explicit element of the ballot under state law.
Despite the Madison office's administrative error, two systems are in place to prevent duplication — a barcode that is unique to each absentee voter and a poll book that records receipt of each voter's participation, as described by Witzel-Behl:
Each ward has two copies of the poll book. Two poll workers check each voter, including absentee voters, into the poll book. They assign each voter a sequential number (the number on the voter slip you are given), and write the number in the poll book.
If you have a number next to your name on the poll book, that means you have voted in person or your absentee ballot has been processed by the poll workers. Poll workers write the letter A after a voter slip number for an absentee voter, indicating that the voter was an absentee voter.
Any registered voter, regardless of the manner in which they voted, gets only one entry in the poll book. "You can only be checked into the poll book once," Witzel-Behl told Snopes, "You can only get assigned one voter slip."