Brookfield's Absentee Votes To Be Counted At Polls, Not Central Count

BROOKFIELD, WI — While votes were being counted in the latest Brookfield election, the Common Council passed an ordinance that will affect how absentee ballots are counted in the 2022 fall election.

All 14 members of the city council voted unanimously on Tuesday to repeal an ordinance that allowed absentee ballots to only be counted at the Brookfield Conference Center, city records showed. Instead, absentee ballots can now be counted at polling stations where they were dropped off.

Counting absentee ballots at polling stations will speed up the counting process and give city staff time to help voters and prepare for the fall election, city attorney Jenna Merten told Patch. Also, absentee voters will still be able to drop their ballots off at their local polling place.

"We had to do it before the federal and state election in August, so our polling workers could prepare and we could answer their questions," Merten said.

City workers have to write a voter number on the back of the absentee ballot per state law, but it conflicts with the Wisconsin Constitution's right to a secret ballot, city clerk Michelle Luedtke wrote in a staff report.

The machine at the conference center doesn't have a modem that connects to the Waukesha County Clerk's office, so city staff had to drop off a device with all the count information physically on the same night, the report said.

Poll workers were finished counting 100 percent of Brookfield's votes at the conference center at 8:45 p.m. on Tuesday, Merten said. Workers at the center didn't finish counting votes for the 2020 U.S. Election until 4 a.m. the next day.

The ordinance that required absentee ballots to be sent to the conference center — called Central Count by staff — was passed in 2020, Merten said. The recommendation to repeal the ordinance came from city staff.

In Brookfield, 11,865 contest votes were counted for city mayor on Tuesday, data from the Waukesha County Clerk showed.