“A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday refused to go along with a request from two counties to allow them to fill in a ballot misprint so that as many as 13,500 ballots can be processed more quickly on Election Day. The four conservatives on the court rejected the request … to fill in a misprinted ‘timing mark’ so that tabulating machines can read the ballots, rather than have to duplicate them all on readable ballots. The court’s three liberals dissented, saying the decision ‘leaves local election officials in the lurch.'” Read story here.
Photo: Paper ballot tabulating machines like the one shown here use timing marks to line up ballots to read voter markings.
The judges are not interfering. The counties must comply with election laws of the state the best they can, and it does not appear election officials can add markings to ballots. They could ask voters to put the mark in. If only Florida voters had picked off those hanging chads.
I guess you’ll have to wait several days for those ballots to be counted, and we may not know who won Wisconsin’s electoral votes until they are. Don’t come along and say the counting must stop at midnight on Tuesday. That’s not the law, and as you say, the law must be strictly followed.