WATCH: Where does your ballot go if you vote early?

MADISON, Wis. — Naomi Kowles and photojournalist Lance Heidt takes us through an absentee ballot’s chain of custody; Madison deputy clerk Jim Verbick provides context.

After you arrive at your in-person absentee polling location, this is what will happen, according to the City of Madison Clerk’s Office:

1. The absentee clerk provides an absentee envelope on which the voter writes their name, address, and date of birth.
2. The absentee clerk checks the voter’s ID. Rather than handling the ID, they ask the voter to hold up the ID for them to see.
3. The absentee clerk uses the state’s voter registration system to verify that the voter is registered, and to process the absentee request. The absentee clerk generates a label that they affix to the absentee envelope. They ask the voter to verify that their name and address are listed correctly on the label.
4. The absentee clerk stamps Absentee on a ballot card and writes the ward number and City Clerk’s initials on the card. They activate the ballot card for the voter’s ward and school district, using the ExpressVote accessible voting device. This device offers a touchscreen with large print and high contrast, a Braille keypad, compatibility with Sip & Puff devices, and Spanish translation. Using this device for in-person absentee voting also eliminates the need to keep each site stocked with 29 different ballot styles.
5. The absentee clerk steps back to give the voter privacy, and the voter follows the ExpressVote prompts to select the candidates of their choice.
6. The voter reviews and approves their selections before the ExpressVote prints the voter’s selections on the ballot card. Once the ballot card is printed, the voter may feed the card back into the ExpressVote to review their selections again. They may also read the selections printed on the ballot card.
7. The voter folds their ballot card in half and seals it in their absentee envelope.
8. The voter signs their envelope in the presence of the absentee clerk. The absentee clerk signs as the voter’s witness.
9. At the end of the voting shift for the day, the absentee ballot is delivered to the City Clerk’s Office in a courier bag with a tamper-evident seal. The absentee clerk and the courier both verify the number of absentees and the tamper-evident seal number. They document the unique serial number on the tamper-evident seal and the number of absentees in the courier bag.
10. City Clerk’s Office personnel verify the serial number on the tamper-evident seal, and the number of absentee envelopes sealed inside the courier bag.
11. Absentee ballots remain sealed in their certificate envelope and secured by the Clerk’s Office until delivered to the voter’s polling place to be processed on Election Day.
12. On Election Day, poll workers at the voter’s polling location verify that the certificate on the absentee envelope is complete, check the voter into the poll book to be assigned a voter number, and insert the ballot into the tabulator to be counted. To protect the secrecy of the ballot, poll workers process absentee ballots in groups of at least three, completely separate the envelopes from the ballots after checking the envelopes in at the poll book, and shuffle the ballots before unfolding them for processing.

State law says absentee ballots cannot be counted until Election Day.

You can find more information on what you need to know before you go vote in our Voter Information Guide.

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