Absentee Voting Begins Today in Care Facilities

Voters in qualified nursing homes and assisted living facilities will be able to cast their absentee ballots this week.

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 dates and times of each Special Voting Deputy visit are posted at the facility, and on the Clerk's Office website. This helps voters plan ahead if they want a family member present to assist them with marking their ballot. Facility staff are not allowed to assist with marking the ballot.

The Republican Party and the Democratic Party are allowed to send one observer to each facility visit, if they notify the Clerk's Office in advance. No other observers are permitted.

The SVDs try to connect with every resident who has requested an absentee. Those residents mark their ballot during the SVD visit. The ballot is sealed in an absentee envelope, to be counted at the polls on Election Day. Absentee envelopes are secured in a courier bag that is sealed with a tamper evident seal bearing a unique serial number, and returned directly to the City Clerk's Office.

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