Wisconsin election officials may count ballots that reached a polling place after the 8 p.m. Election Day deadline if the ballots were already in a municipal clerk’s custody on time and officials caused the delay, a Dane County judge ruled Tuesday, Oct. 13. Dane County Circuit Judge Everett Mitchell issued the decision in a lawsuit brought by Margaret and Robert Honig, whose ballots were among 23 delayed in Madison during the April state Supreme Court election. Madison officials said an election administrator’s error kept the ballots from reaching polling places before the deadline. The Wisconsin Elections Commission had ordered that the 23 ballots not be counted. Mitchell reversed that decision in May, and his latest order addresses whether ballots delayed by election officials may be counted in similar circumstances. Mitchell wrote that when a qualified voter meets the legal requirements and the ballot is in the municipal clerk’s custody in time for delivery, an election official’s failure to get it to the polling place by 8 p.m. is not a lawful reason to reject it. Wisconsin law requires ballots to be delivered to polling places by 8 p.m. The commission argued that the deadline bars counting ballots that arrive later. Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell argued that voters should not lose their votes because of mistakes by election officials. The Honigs’ lawsuit contended that rejecting properly cast ballots over those errors would violate voters’ constitutional rights. The ruling does not extend the deadline for voters to return ballots. It also does not permit counting a late-arriving ballot if the voter was even partly responsible for the delay. Wisconsin Elections Commission member Ann Jacobs, a Democratic appointee, praised the decision, saying voters should not bear the consequences of a clerk’s errors. Commission Chair Don Millis, a Republican, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Scott Thompson, a staff counsel at Law Forward, which represents the Madison voters, called the decision a victory for voting rights.