A judge may decide how to process faulty Outagamie County ballots

Outagamie County is going to court to determine how to handle defective ballots on election day. More than 24-thousand printed ballots have a tiny printing error that could cause them to be rejected by counting machines. Clerk Lori O’Bright wants poll workers to re-create those ballots–transferring the same votes to a ballot that can be read. But a number of municipalities in the county–along with the state Elections Commission–want those workers to just fill in the faulty timing mark to save time and avoid errors. In its emergency petition to the court, Outagamie County says negotiations on the issue have not reached an agreement–and they want a judge to decide the correction procedure.