Liam Beran
Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl.
Maribeth Witzel-Behl has been the Madison City Clerk for nearly 20 years.
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway placed City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl on administrative leave today after a series of widely panned election errors, one of which prompted investigation from the state’s election commission and a class-action lawsuit.
“Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the city’s investigation into uncounted absentee ballots during the November election and other aspects of her performance,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said in an email to alders this morning.
“Given the nature of the issues being investigated, we felt this was a necessary step to maintain public confidence in the operations of our clerk’s office,” she wrote in a separate public statement. “The city of Madison places an incredibly high value on our ability to conduct elections to the highest standards, and will spare no city resource to ensure that each vote is counted for the upcoming election.”
The mayor’s office says it will provide updates “as soon as possible,” but cannot provide further details on the personnel action until then.
Rhodes-Conway said City Attorney Michael Haas will serve as the acting interim clerk in Witzel-Behl’s absence and oversee the office’s operations while continuing his duties as city attorney. The spring election is on April 1, and in-person early voting begins in six days. Haas previously served as the administrator and legal counsel of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Several incidents in September and November left the mayor’s office with “undermined” confidence in Witzel-Behl’s leadership, according to an email from the mayor’s chief of staff Isthmus obtained through an open records request. The City Clerk’s Office in September mistakenly sent out 2,250 duplicate absentee ballots to voters; though the office quickly caught its error and apologized to voters, Witzel-Behl came under scathing criticism from Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany.
And in November, clerk’s office employees mistakenly left 193 general election absentee ballots uncounted. Though employees discovered the first batch of ballots on Nov. 12, and a second bundle on Dec. 3, it took until a clerk’s office employee contacted the WEC on Dec. 18 for the mayor’s office to indirectly learn of the mistake.
Shortly after, Witzel-Behl admitted to the mayor’s chief of staff in an email that she was unaware how many ballots were left uncounted and “should have pressed for more details earlier and communicated with all of you weeks ago.”
The WEC launched an investigation into the missing ballots on Jan. 2, releasing an initial summary of findings on March 7. The election commission’s staff found that Witzel-Behl directed her staff to contact the WEC and Dane County Clerk’s Office — a communication Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell disputes happened — once the uncounted ballots were discovered.
The commission’s staff also found, however, that Witzel-Behl did not explain, in her written answers, “when she knew or discovered that her directions had not been fully followed [nor] why she did not follow up with the County Clerk or Commission if she knew or suspected that her directives had not been carried out.”
During a March 7 meeting, Ann Jacobs, the chair of the WEC, criticized Witzel-Behl’s pre- and post-election practices, citing a “complete lack of leadership” from Witzel-Behl.
“I am genuinely troubled by the number of profoundly bad decisions that are recited in these materials leading up to election day,” Jacobs said. And, Jacobs said, “we’ve got, what I can only say is this absolutely shocking set of dates post election, where every opportunity to fix this is ignored.”
Witzel-Behl earns $127,624 yearly. Her contract will expire in September 2026.
