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Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce Fact Briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

Viral Facebook posts that claim ballots will be disqualified if a poll worker writes on a ballot before handing it to a voter at the check-in table are false. 

Wisconsin’s clerk manual explains a ballot must be initialed by two poll workers before it’s given to a voter, a practice also outlined in state law.

The manual also states poll workers should not pre-initial ballots before voters arrive at the check-in table, even if the polling place is busy. The initials make it a “live” ballot.

At the end of election night, poll workers check for those initials to make sure the number of ballots cast matches the number of voters recorded, election officials explained.

Sample ballot templates show the section where poll workers must sign their initials.

The same, nearly verbatim claim about ballot markings has circulated in past elections and has been debunked.

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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Hope Karnopp has reported on politics for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 2023. She covered the 2024 presidential campaigns in Wisconsin and was on the ground at the RNC and DNC. She previously was a Wisconsin Watch reporting intern. Hope is originally from Green Bay and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.