Two ballots were randomly drawn from a stack of votes from New Richmond Wisconsin because election workers had discovered two absentee ballot certificates from that reporting unit that did not have the witnesses address. Election workers did not look at at the ballots so they don’t know who the votes were for, but that will become apparent when they add up the ballots later today.
Wisconsin Republican controlled legislature passed a stricter election law that said absentee ballots “missing the address of a witness” can’t be counted. Most absentee ballots missing a witness address were declared ineligible in the original count, however a few apparently were missed. The new law along with a requirement for voters to present a photo ID is seen by Democrats as a way of suppressing voter turnout in Wisconsin.
Also, when comparing actual votes to the election poll book they found there was one more vote in than there was voters. That’s probably because they found the actual ballot inside an absentee ballot envelope. They are supposed to be separated and then tallied on election day. To compensate they went through the ballots and found a “blank” one that had no votes for president and removed it.
The recount of the votes in St. Croix county is going on in Hudson, Wisconsin and is part of a state-wide recount of presidential votes.