Tom Tiffany alleges that duplicate ballots in Madison are being sent out 'in error' and are not bar-coded

Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany called for an investigation after Madison, Wis., city officials said 2,215 duplicate ballots had been mailed in 10 districts in error.

In a new complaint, Tiffany contended that he has evidence that the ballots do not have a bar code.

"Although the Madison Clerk’s Office claims, 'The voting system does not allow a ballot with the same barcode to be submitted,' my office has proof that there is no barcode on the actual ballots," said Tiffany, who posted an image showing the ballots.

Meanwhile, Tiffany's office also released a statement reporting that the congressman sent a follow-up letter to Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl, highlighting what it called his office's repeated pattern of changing explanations on the duplicate ballot case

In addition, Rep. Tiffany's office detailed that he requested an independent third-party investigation into the matter to ensure public transparency and accountability for those responsible.

"In the letter, Tiffany cited numerous examples of the Clerk’s Office saying one thing, only to subsequently revise those statements or scrub the information from their website later. Those revisions included claims about the number of wards impacted, how many duplicate ballots were distributed, the location of barcodes, and efforts to inform voters of the mistakes," the Republican's office highlighted.

The Madison clerk responded to Tiffany and indicated that "barcodes linked to the state voter registration system are printed on the ballot envelope, not the ballot."

"These types of barcodes are used across the state and the country. They are unique to an individual voter and printed on the absentee ballot return envelope so they can be scanned in once received by a Clerk’s office," she added.

On Sept. 23, Witzel-Behl reported that the error in the ballot mailing had been recorded and maintained that the situation was corrected.

"The Madison Clerk’s Office is rectifying a data processing error that caused duplicate absentee ballots to be sent to around 2,000 voters. The error affected only an isolated number of voters and was quickly caught and corrected so that it will not affect any other ballots going forward," the clerk's office explained.

"The Clerk’s office has been contacting voters individually to inform them of the error, caution them to submit only one ballot, and to destroy the second one to avoid any confusion," the office added.