Election officials to consider voting deputies question

Wisconsin election officials were expected to consider Wednesday whether to allow special voting deputies back into nursing homes to help residents cast absentee ballots after postponing the discussion last week.

State law allows local clerks to appoint deputies to enter nursing homes and help residents complete their ballots. The Wisconsin Elections Commission banned deputies from entering facilities in March as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

Republican Commissioner Robert Spindell asked commission staff during a Sept. 1 meeting to reconsider the ban. Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe has recommended the panel retain the ban on deputies, saying the risk they could spread the virus is still too great.

The commission was set to discuss the idea during a Sept. 10 meeting. But that meeting was postponed after the state Supreme Court ordered the commission to turn over the names and addresses of everyone who had requested an absentee ballot so far as it pondered whether to place Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins on the ballot.

The court on Monday decided to not to add Hawkins to the ballot, saying there isn't enough time for clerks to reprint ballots and get them out to more than 1 million voters who have already requested them.

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