Lisa Tollefson on the Pace of Counting Ballots in Wisconsin

Frederica Freyberg:
In more election news, they should just count their ballots faster. That’s the sentiment of the Wisconsin senate majority leader in explaining how his chamber does not have the votes to pass a bill that would allow municipalities to count absentee ballots the day before an election and require it in Milwaukee, especially since the pandemic, early absentee voting has been on the rise, leaving election clerks sometimes swamped with opening envelopes well into the night. That can cause swings in results like what happened in 2020 when Donald Trump falsely claimed vote dumping in Milwaukee. For an election clerk’s take on this, we turn to Lisa Tollefson in Rock County. Thanks very much for being here.

Lisa Tollefson:
Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
What kind of increases have you seen in absentee voting?

Lisa Tollefson:
So in 2020, we had over 60% of our population voted absentee. Prior to that, it was 20 to 25%. It has not gone down to that rate of 20, 25%. I’m expecting to see a lot more in this coming up election and in November. We might not reach 60%, but it’s going to be definitely higher than in the past.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what do those kinds of numbers mean on Election Day as far as counting the results?

Lisa Tollefson:
So absentee ballots take a lot more time to process. You’re having two people review everything. You have to open it, you have to log it. There’s a whole process that’s an extra step throughout, and all of that takes time, and you don’t want anyone to rush. You want them to be accurate as possible. When people come in to vote in person, they’re doing all that work for you. They sign the poll book, they give them a number, they get their ballot, they put it in the machine. On Election Day, if we’re doing your absentees, you have two people doing all that work for that voter. It takes a lot of time.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so kind of the increase and the crush of this is not just difficult for locations like Milwaukee?

Lisa Tollefson:
No. It increases for everyone. Everyone either has more poll workers on. We had municipalities buy extra machines just to handle that extra volume to make sure that they could get them processed. You can’t expect something that takes longer to do in the same amount of time that you already have. You can’t double it, double your time. It doesn’t work.

Frederica Freyberg:
What would it mean, then, to be able to be count absentee ballots the day before the election?

Lisa Tollefson:
So there’s a couple of advantages is that you can get those ballots done and you can take your time to make sure everything’s processed and double-checked. Then all you would have left to do are the remaining or just the ones that come in on Election Day and then you can focus on taking care of those voters that come into the polls on Election Day. But the results coming in sooner is the biggest plus. If you can get everything done as close to 8:00 as possible, all the results come in early, there’s not as much confusion and it’s a lot clearer as to the results before those many, many people go to bed before it’s finished on election night.

Frederica Freyberg:
Can you imagine how there would be any issue with election integrity if these ballots were counted the day before?

Lisa Tollefson:
There are so many security pieces in this, and in our whole system, we lock everything down. There are security seals. Everything has a check and balance throughout the whole system. It’s in our system now. It’s in place with this new bill. This would — I don’t see that as being the issue. Every ballot, every absentee ballot is tracked the entire way through the system, when it’s issued, when it’s mailed, when it’s received, when it’s counted. Everything is tracked.

Frederica Freyberg:
So interestingly, the Republican Party of Wisconsin is now encouraging early absentee voting, calling it banking your vote. Do you expect there to be even more interest in this for the November election because of messaging like that?

Lisa Tollefson:
Absolutely. I am definitely ordering more absentee ballots so we’re ready to go.

Frederica Freyberg:
What else are clerks dealing with this election cycle?

Lisa Tollefson:
We are looking at all different things. You’re looking at AI. What happens if we get some — that artificial intelligence could get some messaging that could be confusing. We are looking at safety protocols we’ve never looked at before to make sure everything is safe for our voters and our poll workers. There’s a lot of things in the background we are prepping for to make sure we’re ready.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are those kind of safety protocols that you’ve never done before that you’re now doing?

Lisa Tollefson:
Lots of contingency plans. Lots of contingency plans. And some of them, I don’t like to talk about so everyone knows what they are, but making sure that if we need to move, if we need to secure something differently, there’s — there’s pieces there that we are definitely prepping for to make sure we’re ready.

Frederica Freyberg:
What about staffing? Is that an issue? I mean, it’s an issue for everyone everywhere. Right? But is it an issue for you and other clerks?

Lisa Tollefson:
I don’t see it right now, but I have a feeling as we go closer to November and we see a lot more absentee ballots, we’re going to need more staff. And as in everywhere, we’re having trouble hiring. Poll workers — we need more people to step forward to help. So anyone who can, think about it, become a poll worker. More absentees means more work, more checks and balances that need to go through every one of those absentee ballots.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Well, we wish you and others luck. Lisa Tollefson, thanks very much.

Lisa Tollefson:
Thank you.