Liam Beran
Maribeth Witzel-Behl.
Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl in an email to the mayor's chief of staff: 'I should have pressed for more details earlier and communicated with all of you weeks ago.'
After learning indirectly that the Madison City Clerk's Office had failed to process nearly 200 ballots from the Nov. 5 election, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway's chief of staff sent an email to the head clerk criticizing not only this incident but her overall performance.
“I was extremely disturbed to once again have to find out about a significant issue in your office not from you, but from another department,” Sam Munger wrote in a Dec. 20 email to Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl. Isthmus received the email through an open records request. “Worse yet, apparently you have been aware of this issue since at least Thanksgiving and are only now bringing it to the attention of anyone else in the city.
"This incident highlights the ongoing issues with communications from your office and, combined with questionable handling of a number of previous incidents this year, has significantly undermined our confidence in your leadership of the department,” Munger continued.
City communications manager Dylan Brogan declined to comment on Munger’s behalf, citing ongoing investigations into the uncounted ballots by the city and Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Through Brogan, Witzel-Behl said she is “unable to comment at this time.”
According to an email thread between Munger and Witzel-Behl, the mayor’s office learned of the uncounted ballots only after Nikki Perez, a staffer in the clerk’s office, requested on Dec. 18 that the Elections Commission override a discrepancy for Wards 56 and 65, two days before the Dec. 20 reconciliation deadline. On Dec. 19, Perez’ request was referred to Wisconsin Elections Commission supervisor Riley Willman, who asked to meet with Perez, Witzel-Behl and City Attorney Michael Haas. Haas informed the mayor’s office of the pending meeting on Dec. 20.
In his Dec. 20 email to Witzel-Behl, Munger said that while he understood a desire to gather information “before initiating the discussion,” it should have taken only hours or days for the clerk’s office to understand the situation, not weeks.
“In this case, you never initiated the conversation with the rest of the city,” Munger wrote. “I am struggling to understand how it is possible that we conducted a post-election debriefing earlier this week and neither you nor your staff saw fit to raise this issue.”
In his email, Munger did not detail any of the broader communication issues he alludes to. The clerk’s office did publicly acknowledge in September 2024 that about 2,250 duplicate absentee ballots had mistakenly been sent out.
Munger said that an analysis of Witzel-Behl’s handling of the 193 ballots and “other incidents this year,” including steps to “avoid a repeat, can wait until January.” But he said that Witzel-Behl needed to draft a public statement on the uncounted ballots by noon on Dec. 23.
Witzel-Behl responded in an email three days later, 30 minutes before her deadline, with a public statement attached. She said that she had not been aware of the high number of ballots left unprocessed: “I apologize,” she wrote. “The updates I received from the hourly employees reconciling voter participation did not convey the volume involved here. I learned on Friday that ‘some ballots’ was 193 ballots. I should have pressed for more details earlier and communicated with all of you weeks ago.”
Employees in the clerk’s office found 68 of the ballots on Nov. 12 and another 125 on Dec. 3. The 68 ballots could have been processed had Witzel-Behl’s office alerted Dane County officials to the situation at the time, according to Votebeat. Witzel-Behl claims a clerk’s office employee orally informed the county that 68 ballots were unprocessed, but Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell disputes such a communication ever took place.
Witzel-Behl, who first began as city clerk in 2006, earns $127,624 annually. Her five-year contract, which must be approved by the city council, runs until Sept. 11, 2026, according to a copy available on the city’s legislation website.
Brogan says there have been no changes to Witzel-Behl’s contract as a result of the ballot incident and that there have been no discussions about her contract not being renewed.
