Clerk’s Office Makes Changes to Better Serve Absentee Voters in Care Facilities

The Madison City Clerk’s Office coordinated 54 visits to nursing homes and care facilities this week in an effort to better serve absentee voters.

State law requires poll workers to bring absentee voting to absentee requestors in certain nursing homes and care facilities. The City of Madison has 27 of these facilities. A pair of poll workers called Special Voting Deputies (SVDs) visits each facility twice before an election. 

The SVDs try to connect with every resident who has requested an absentee. For the April Election, there were 493 absentee requests on file across the 27 facilities. These absentee voters mark their ballot during the SVD visit. If they require assistance marking their ballot, only a family member or SVD may provide assistance. The ballot is sealed in an absentee envelope, to be counted at the polls on Election Day.

At the second visit to a facility, the SVDs make another attempt to find voters who were unavailable during the first visit. After the second visit, the Clerk’s Office mails ballots to the absentee voters with whom the SVDs could not connect.

The Special Voting Deputy process begins 22 days before Election Day. In the past, Madison's 54 site visits would take two weeks to complete. That left only 12 days for absentee ballots to travel through the mail to and from voters who were unavailable during the absentee visit. However, it often takes a week for mail to be delivered from the Clerk’s Office to another City of Madison address. A two-week window is needed to guarantee that there is enough time for the ballot to be delivered to a voter through the mail, and then delivered back to the Clerk’s Office through the mail.

Absentee ballots must be at the polls on Election Day if they are going to be counted. The Clerk’s Office scheduled all 54 visits 18 to 22 days before the Spring Election. Additional poll workers needed to be recruited and trained to facilitate this initiative. A total of 72 individuals served as Special Voting Deputies for this election. For the entire week, the Clerk’s Office had staff dedicated to preparing SVD materials, checking in absentees returned to the Clerk’s Office after each visit, verifying tamper-evident seal numbers, and answering SVD questions over the phone.

“In some parts of our country officials are working to make it more difficult to vote, but here in Madison, the fabulous employees in the City Clerk’s office are doing the opposite,” said Mayor Rhodes-Conway. “Through an amazing amount of work staff were able to connect with residents of long-term care facilities to guarantee that their vote will be counted for the April primary. I know they are grateful for that effort and so am I.”

The goal of the City Clerk’s Office is that each eligible voter will be able to cast a ballot and have that ballot counted.