VILLAGE OF WRIGHTSTOWN, Wis (NBC 26) -- If you're like many voters, this election might be your first time filling out an absentee ballot. Some local clerks say many of those ballots are not being filled out correctly and some votes may not be counted as a result, if the problems can't be rectified.
All across Wisconsin ballots are flooding into municipal clerk's offices. But for those who make a mistake filling out the ballots, only some of the issues can be discovered before clerks open the envelopes that contain the ballots.
"We can not start opening them up until 7 am on election day," says Michelle Seidl the Clerk and Treasurer for the Village of Wrightstown.
To make sure your ballot is counted, the Wisconsin Elections Commission recommends that you first find a black ballpoint pen.
"Not a sharpie, not a marker, just a black ink ballpoint pen," says Seidl.
Seidl says you'll want to mark your choices for candidates on the ballot in as neat and as careful of a manner as possible to make sure there is no confusion.
"We just fill in the oval as tight as possible."
But there are also some mistakes made when voters put their ballot in the ballot envelope that was provided for the ballots to be returned to clerk's offices. Seidl says to make sure your ballot is authenticated you'll want to make sure your John Hancock is on the envelope in the required field which is often highlighted.
"The first yellow line. That is the voter signature and the date."
Directly below the voters required signature on the official ballot envelope, is a section for the voter's witness to sign as well. But, Seidl says some voters who are making mistakes, are not filling that section out correctly.
"The majority of them come in with a witness signature but there is no address or the address is incomplete. They'll put their street address, but they won't put the city, state, and zip code. That's the line that the majority of the time is being missed."
A witness can be anyone over 18, that is a US citizen and not a candidate in any current political race on the ballot. Witnesses are supposed to observe voters filling out their ballot, but not look at their choices. Following the completion of the ballot being filled out Seidl says voters will want to seal the envelope and not tamper with it.
"If the ballot comes open, if it's very torn where the ballot is exposed and can be removed from the envelope, that would be a situation where we would want to check a little further with the voter."
For more information regarding absentee voting and frequently asked questions, we have included a link here, provided by the Wisconsin Elections Committee.
If you would like to see more "step by step instructions" as to how to fill out an absentee ballot, the Wisconsin Elections Committee has an additional resource for that as well, located here.
