Misinformation around Wisconsin ballot issues circulates online

"How does Wisconsin vote for requiring voter ID to vote and elect a Democrat Supreme Court judge at the same time? That doesn't make sense," Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, said in an April 2, 2025 post on X. "And what about the stories of running out of ballots in red areas?"

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Screenshot from X taken April 9, 2025

Another widely shared post, from an account that has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory and other disinformation, further claimed that ballots were intentionally withheld to harm Republicans.

"SEVEN counties in Wisconsin have Run out of Ballots, others are also low on Ballots," the account, "MJTruthUltra," wrote on X. "I try telling people… this is intentional. The entire purpose is to chip away from REAL voters. They are chipping away, little by little, the republican voter turnout."

Similar posts claiming ballots ran out in "red areas" or "red districts" spread across X after Wisconsin voters elected Democrat-backed judge Susan Crawford to the state's Supreme Court, in a highly funded race that became a proxy battle for the nation's political fights and a test of President Donald Trump's policies. Trump had endorsed losing candidate Brad Schimel, with billionaire Trump advisor Elon Musk also dumping millions of dollars into the contest.

The commanding win by Crawford, who opposed the state's voter identification law, keeps the court under a 4-3 liberal majority, as it has been since 2023.

As voters flocked to the polls April 1, Milwaukee officials said seven polling locations had used up their ballots and others were running low, and that additional resources had been dispatched to replenish the supply and ensure people could cast their votes, according to local news reports.

In an April 9 email, the Milwaukee Elections Commission told AFP the ballot supply issues affected a total of 69 sites throughout the city, with eight locations that completely ran out of ballots for a period of time before being restocked.

The commission said the shortages were due to "historic turnout" and that they deployed additional couriers to deliver the needed reinforcements.

"Any voters in line by 8pm when polls closed were able to vote," the commission said. "We were aware of two sites that had voters who were in line by 8pm that were finished voting after 9pm."

But contrary to the posts online, the issues affected a few voting sites, not entire counties. And officials and experts say there is no evidence they expanded beyond Milwaukee.

Milwaukee ballot shortages

Joel DeSpain, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, told AFP the state was aware of no other counties exhausting their ballot supplies.

"We have no confirmation, no information of any jurisdiction, outside of the city of Milwaukee, running out of ballots," DeSpain said in an April 4 email.

Ari Mittleman, executive director of Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan civic education organization that works on strengthening elections in Wisconsin and other states, said the information his team had gathered from reports and sources in the state similarly indicated that the shortages were limited to Milwaukee.

"We have not seen any verified evidence indicating that polling sites outside of Milwaukee experienced ballot shortages," Mittleman told AFP in an April 7 email.

Mittleman said local officials are trained to deal with such problems and that they were temporary, not systemic or coordinated.

"Issues like this are not indicative of fraud or malfeasance. In fact, they are proof that Wisconsin's decentralized and responsive election systems can adapt and overcome unexpected challenges."

Milwaukee has long voted for Democrats at the national level (archived here). Presidential candidates Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama all won the city over their Republican counterparts by significant margins (archived here, here, here, here and here).

Crawford carried over 83 percent of the vote in the city on April 1, according to its unofficial election results summary (archived here).

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, another nonprofit group that monitors elections in the state, said in an April 7 email that Greene "has no idea what she's talking about."

Outside Milwaukee

AFP found scattered posts on X alleging that other locations throughout Wisconsin had run out of ballots, including Wood County, Oneida County and the city of Richland Center.

Trent Miner, the Wood County clerk, told AFP in an April 7 email that the county ran out of pre-printed ballots, but that residents were still able to vote using the electronic system in place.

"That is a huge differentiation," he said. "There were voters that used the ExpressVote machine, and there were also paper ballots at that polling location that were hand counted at the end of the night."

Like the Milwaukee Elections Commission, Miner said the county saw larger-than-expected turnout. He said elections officials were briefed in advance on how to handle such a scenario.

Tracy Hartman, the Oneida County clerk, said in an April 10 email that a few of the county's municipalities ran out of materials for their voting machines and switched to paper ballots. Hartman said voters at those locations did not have to wait to vote, and that no polling site went through all its ballots.

Amanda Keller, Richland Center's city clerk, said in an April 7 email that four of the city's districts neared the end of their printed ballots, but that they did not run out.

AFP had fact-checked other misinformation about US politics here.