Green County’s official recount will not include missing ballots

110 ballots missing in 17th Senate District recount

MADISON, Wis. — A recount in the 17th District Senate primary could be determined by a significant number of missing ballots.

Pat Bomhack asked for the recount after being just seven votes behind fellow Democratic challenger Ernie Wittwer in the primary.

Green County Clerk Michael Doyle said when they started tallying up the numbers there were 110 ballots missing. So county leaders got together Tuesday afternoon to question poll workers to try and figure out where they went.

Doyle told WisPolitics late Tuesday that election officials have not been able to track down the missing ballots, so he will have to certify final results without them.

Monroe City Clerk Carol Stamm said she thinks the mix-up may have happened when a poll worker put a pile of blank ballots on the table after the polls closed.

“My speculation is that one of the poll workers there saw that, picked up ‘Oh here’s blank ones,’ grabbed them and there were voted ballots underneath. And aside where they were working was a box of extra unvoted, unused ballots and they put them in there,” Stamm said.

Bomhack and Wittwer were competing to face Republican Howard Marklein to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Dale Schutlz.