For the second time since Election Day 2020, uniformed police officers will be on duty when ballot counting begins in Green Bay’s local elections. It’s the result of tension building for over a year in the city, which has become ground zero for election conspiracy theories in a battleground state still consumed by the last presidential race. Furor that started over the use of private funds to help a cash-strapped local government run the 2020 election soon morphed into something darker than normal political disagreement, including a report of a “suspicious person” who improperly accessed the clerk’s office on Election Day 2020, according to city government emails obtained by POLITICO. Now, Green Bay’s nonpartisan city council races — traditionally quiet affairs that focus on taxes and roads — feature ads from a GOP super PAC questioning whether the city’s elections are legitimate and a Democratic super PAC urging voters to “keep Wisconsin elections fair, secure and accessible.” Threats to local officials increased, and some poll workers have dropped out of the election, citing safety concerns. Officials installed cameras on every floor of city hall and formulated evacuation plans, after the November 2020 incident in the clerk’s office and the gathering of protesters outside city hall on Jan. 6., 2021. A mayoral recall effort is underway.
Wisconsin: Dane County elections committee calls for greater security for equipment, clerks | Chris Rickert/Wisconsin State Journal
Describing the security of election equipment as “inadequate” and threats to elections workers as a “serious problem,” a Dane County task force on Monday called for hardening the county’s election infrastructure in the wake of a 2020 presidential election that many Republicans continue to falsely claim was tainted by systemic fraud or outright stolen. A report by the nine-member Election Security Review Committee does not make specific recommendations for how much more should be spent or on what, although during a press conference held over Zoom, Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said he’d like to see a dedicated climate-controlled building, with cameras and other security, to store voting machines and other equipment. The committee also was not able to obtain specific figures from local or federal law enforcement on how many threats were made against the county’s election workers or whether any of those were investigated and led to prosecutions. But a survey of the county’s municipal clerks found that 84% of respondents said threats against election officials have increased in recent years, with 70% saying they were at least “somewhat concerned” for their safety or the safety of their staffs and 78% saying they worried about being harassed over the phone or on the job. Fifty of the county’s 62 clerks’ offices responded to the survey.
Full Article: Dane County elections committee calls for greater security for equipment, clerks | Local Government | madison.com