Election Checks and Balances

Our election processes include checks and balances to ensure election integrity.

Observers
You may see individuals wearing Election Observer badges when you go vote. Observers play a role in keeping our elections transparent. Anyone can observe our polling places, absentee voting sites, and ballot drop boxes.

Voter Registration
The City Clerk’s Office regularly checks for potential duplicate records in the state’s voter registration system. They routinely review potential matches with death records and felon records.

Absentees
You must be registered to request an absentee ballot. With few exceptions, absentee requests must be accompanied by a voter ID if you don’t already have your ID on file with the Clerk’s Office.

Absentee ballots remain sealed in their certificate envelopes until counted at the polls on Election Day. Each absentee is checked into the poll book and assigned a voter slip number. You can only be checked into the poll book once.

Couriers
Whenever absentees are transported from a drop box or absentee voting site to the Clerk’s Office, or from the Clerk’s Office to the polls, a sworn election official secures the ballots in a bag with a tamper evident seal bearing a unique serial number. That serial number is documented on a chain of custody form, verified by the courier and one other official. Upon delivery, the serial number on the tamper-evident seal is verified by officials.

Two officials are involved whenever we work with absentee envelopes or voted ballots, whether in the Clerk’s Office or at the polls.

Voter Slips
Poll workers keep track of how many voters there are by issuing a voter slip with a sequential number as each voter checks in. The Chief Inspector at each polling place compares the number of voter slips issued to the number of ballots counted (public count on the tabulator screen) at least every hour on Election Day. Any discrepancy must be resolved before results are printed.

Poll Workers
Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have appointed individuals to serve as poll workers in the City of Madison. Most of our poll workers are not affiliated with a political party. Regardless of how they were appointed, poll workers are not partisan at the polls.

All City of Madison poll workers attend training before every election that they work. Our poll workers rotate tasks throughout Election Day so they are all aware of the procedures for each station at the polls. We assign poll workers to their own polling place whenever possible.

Paper Trail
We have a paper-based voting system with a paper trail. Poll workers create duplicate records of who voted and print two sets of results tapes. When the polls close, one set of documents goes to the City Clerk and one set goes to the County Clerk.

Ballots are sealed in ballot bags bearing unique serial numbers, with tamper evident seals. Poll workers document the serial number of each ballot bag used.

Reconciliation
After each election, the Clerk’s Office scans the barcode for each voter on the poll book and process Election Day registrations. The number of voters accounted for must equal the number of ballots counted on Election Day.