Thread by @patrickdmarley

Preparations are under way for Dane County’s recount at the Monona Terrace.

“The first day is slow. The first day is not ideal, and then it picks up pace.” — @samcdonell, the Dane County clerk and chair of the county’s Board of Canvassers.

Today they are starting to count the number of ballots and absentee envelopes. They won’t start tallying votes until tomorrow. They’ll use high-speed tabulating machines to do that.

Well, scratch that — they won’t be counting MOST votes until tomorrow.

They will be counting the votes from Edgerton today. That will be done as a hand recount.

Most of Edgerton is in Rock County but a small portion is in Dane County. They use Rock County equipment in the town, so Dane County’s recount for Edgerton will be by hand.

The rest of Edgerton — the portions in Rock County — won’t be recounted because Trump sought a recount in just two of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.

Trump’s team is objecting to absentee ballots where there are no written applications for the ballots.

Applications are in the room but the Trump campaign is not able to review them.

Trump attorney Chris Troupis objects to all absentee ballots that do not have written applications, and he is unable to review which ones have applications.

Many communities keep applications but not necessarily in an organized fashion, so they are not easy to match to who voted in the Nov. 3 election.

Biden attorney says the Trump campaign does not have a right to review absentee ballot applications during the recount.

Biden attorney calls the Trump camapaign’s argument frivolous and contends under its contention hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots statewide could be tossed.

David Gault, Dane County corporation counsel, agrees with the Biden campaign that there is no right to review absentee ballot applications.

Applications are required before ballots can be issued. But there is no right to review those applications during a recount, he says.

Chris Troupis of the Trump campaign says the law allows the campaign to review a ballot and all related materials whenever it challenges ballots.

“I’m making this objection for the record,” Chris Troupis says, noting questions of law are to be decided by the courts, not the Board of Canvassers.

Chris Troupis of the Trump campaign wants to throw out all in-person early votes in Dane County.

He says the applications for those ballots are invalid because they are submitted in conjunction with the ballot.

It will be making the same argument for all early in-person votes in Milwaukee County.

But it is not seeking to throw out similar ballots in the other 70 counties.

In Dane County, this would result in about 69,000 ballots being thrown out, according to the Biden campaign.

tl;dr - The Trump campaign wants to throw out in-person early votes in the Wisconsin’s two most Democratic counties but not its other counties.

“This is going to get litigated so we need to make sure everyone gets what they need (in the proceedings)” — @samcdonell

First thing for the Board of Canvassers to decide is whether to remove all or virtually all absentee ballots (that is, those without applications).

Board of Canvassers votes 2-1 to keep absentee ballots.

The Board of Canvassers votes 3-0 to accept a standing objection to all such ballots.

Essentially, that allows the Trump campaign to make objections en masse to groups of ballots, rather than to have to make them ballot by ballot.

Next up: Trump campaign objects to absentee ballots where a clerk filled out a witness’ address (instead of the witness doing it himself or herself).

Trump attorney Chris Troupis says the clerks should have returned those absentee ballots to voters so they could correct the addresses. The clerks cannot fill in that information, he says.

Additionally, Troupis objects to the absentee ballots of all voters who have claimed to be indefinitely confined (such as those with disabilities).

He says he has evidence some of those voters were not confined.

Indefinitely confined voters don’t have to show ID to get absentee ballots, as other voters must.

Troupis is objecting to all ballots from indefinitely confined voters, not just those where he can show the voters were not actually indefinitely confined.

Biden campaign attorney says Trump’s latest objections should be rejected.

She notes @WI_Elections has told clerks for 11 elections in a row that they can fill in missing addresses for witnesses if they know them.

In addition, Biden attorney says a recent state Supreme Court decision argues for counting the ballots of indefinitely confined voters.

Of note: the state Supreme Court is already reviewing the issue of indefinitely confined voters as part of a lawsuit brought this spring by @wisgop.

Board of Canvassers votes 3-0 against eliminating absentee ballots when the clerk filled in the witness address.

Board of Canvassers votes 2-1 against throwing out ballots from indefinitely confined voters.

Board agrees to allow standing objections on these two issues. That means it won’t have to consider them ballot by ballot.

CORRECTION: This vote was 3-0.

A correction -- I had one of the board's early votes wrong. Its vote to keep absentee ballots that didn't have written applications was 3-0, not 2-1.

https://twitter.com/patrickdmarley/status/1329836873116737542?s=20

Objections for Trump were made today by Christ Troupis, the brother of Jim Troupis, the lead attorney for the Trump's recount efforts in Wisconsin.

Christ Tropuis is a retired attorney in Idaho who lost a race for state attorney general several years ago.

The correct spelling for his first name is Christ. I misspelled it earlier in the thread. (Apologies to him for that.)