Wisconsin approves new rule for election observers | Wisconsin Law Journal

The Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) voted to publish a new administrative rule addressing the conduct of election observers and their interactions with election officials after more than two years of bipartisan collaboration. On June 19, WEC commissioners voted 5-1 to approve the rule that intends to offer clarity and uniformity to election observation for the benefit of voters, election officials, and observers. The rule will take effect on Aug. 1 after it has been added to the administrative code as EL 4 and published in the Administrative Register at the end of July. The final rule order, which took more than two years to develop, specifies who can observe elections, defines the rights and limitations of what election observers may do, differentiates election observers from election inspectors, and creates a more streamlined and accessible set of instructions for election observers to follow during the election process. Read Article

Wisconsin proposal would require simple explanation of ballot questions | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

Wisconsin Republicans want to require that all proposed constitutional amendments come with a plain-language explanation, a move that they say would help voters better understand complex ballot questions. The proposal has drawn broad support. But some lawmakers are concerned about whether the measure as proposed would leave the interpretation of ballot questions vulnerable to partisanship. And even some supporters say the bill should have more specific standards for what constitutes plain language. In its current version, the bill calls for the Legislature to pass a plain-language explanation along with any proposed constitutional amendment. The explanation would be drafted by the Legislative Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan legislative agency that helps draft bills, but legislators would be able to revise it. Neither the explanation nor the amendment would be subject to a governor’s veto. Read Article

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign sues Elon Musk, alleging million-dollar check giveaways were voter bribes | Bruna Horvath/NBC

A Wisconsin watchdog group has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk claiming that he unlawfully bribed voters with million-dollar checks and $100 giveaways in the state’s latest Supreme Court election. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign — a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that investigates election transparency — along with two Wisconsin voters, filed the suit against Musk, his super PAC America PAC and another Musk-owned entity called the United States of America Inc. In the suit, the plaintiffs claimed that Musk and his entities violated state laws that prohibit vote bribery and unauthorized lotteries. It also accuses Musk of conducting civil conspiracy and acting as a public nuisance. Read Article

Justice Department targets Arizona and Wisconsin over compliance with federal election law | Alexander Shur andJen Fifield/Votebeat

The U.S. Justice Department has sent letters to election officials in at least two key swing states, threatening action against the states if they don’t comply with provisions of a 2002 federal election law. Lawyers from the department’s civil rights division sent letters in recent weeks to both Arizona and Wisconsin. The Arizona letter said that state officials are not properly verifying voters’ identities as dictated by the Help America Vote Act, and warned of a lawsuit. The Wisconsin letter said the Wisconsin Elections Commission is not properly resolving administrative complaints as required by the same law, and threatened to withhold federal election funds over that issue. The Justice Department recently sued North Carolina also, claiming that the state has not been properly verifying voter identity. Read Article

Wisconsin Elections Commission chairwoman responds to warning letter from federal officials | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

U.S. Department of Justice officials are threatening to withhold funding from the Wisconsin Elections Commission over alleged violations of federal law but a top state election official says there’s no funding to cut. The Democratic chairwoman of the commission told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the commission doesn’t currently receive the funding federal officials are threatening to withhold and disputed the merits of the DOJ accusations. Even so, the Republican leaders of the state Legislature’s budget-writing committee on June 5 decided to delay voting on funding the state elections agency until they can review the DOJ matter further. Read Article

Wisconsin communities are free to use paper ballots, elections commission rules | Mitchell Schmidt | Wisconsin State Journal

Wisconsin’s smallest communities do not need permission from the Wisconsin Elections Commission to stop using electronic voting machines, the agency ordered this week. Under the commission’s decision, Wisconsin towns, villages and municipalities still must provide at least one electronic voting machine at a polling location to accommodate voters with disabilities. But other than that, nothing prevents communities with fewer than 7,500 residents to stop using the machines. The decision stems from a complaint filed against the town of Thornapple, in Rusk County, alleging the community violated state law when officials shifted from using voting tabulators to hand-counting paper ballots in last year’s April and August elections. Read Article

Wisconsin election officials seek more flexibility in proposed early-voting mandate | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

Wisconsin Republicans are proposing an expansion of early voting, with new requirements for municipalities statewide, but some local officials say the one-size-fits-all mandate wouldn’t make sense for Wisconsin’s smallest communities. The proposal would require every municipality in Wisconsin, regardless of its size, to offer at least 20 hours of in-person absentee voting at the clerk’s office, or an alternative site, for each election. The bill’s authors say they want to reimburse local governments for the added costs, though they haven’t yet clarified how they would do that. Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, a Republican, said she wrote the bill after noticing the stark difference in early-voting availability between rural and urban municipalities. Read Article

Wisconsin election officials seek repeal of law that can risk ballot secrecy | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

When the clerk of Rock County, Wisconsin, gets a public-records request for images of election ballots, much of it is easy to fulfill. For most municipalities in the county, it’s just a matter of uploading a photo of the ballot that’s already captured when it gets tabulated. But for two of the county’s largest cities — Janesville and Beloit — it’s a lot more complicated, and time-consuming, because of a state law governing places that use a central counting facility for their absentee ballots. For those ballots, Clerk Lisa Tollefson must redact the unique identifying numbers that the law requires poll workers to write on each one. Otherwise, the number could be used to connect the ballots to the voters who cast them. And because the numbers don’t appear in the same place on each ballot, Tollefson must click through the ballot images one at a time to locate and blot out the number before releasing the images. Read Article

Wisconsin towns want to appoint election clerks instead of electing them | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

A couple of years ago, Lorraine Beyersdorff was ready to retire from her job as clerk of the Town of Texas, Wisconsin, after 34 years of service. “I will not run again,” she said in a community Facebook post in late 2022. “Nomination papers can be circulated for signatures beginning December 1st. If interested, call me for more information.” About a dozen people thanked her for a job well done. But no one filed nomination papers. Nobody called. And because of a quirk in Wisconsin law, no one from outside of the 1,600-person town could take the job. State law requires all elected town clerks — and the appointees that replace clerks departing mid-term — to live in the town where they serve. Beyersdorff, 73, knew there was another option: The town could switch from electing its clerk to appointing one. That would allow officials to consider candidates from outside the town’s borders. Read Article

Wisconsin clerk who failed to count November votes violated multiple policies, investigators say | Todd Richmond/Associated Press

The former clerk who somehow failed to count nearly 200 ballots in Wisconsin’s capital city didn’t break any laws but did violate multiple policies and her contractual duty to supervise elections and maintain professional standards, the results of a city-led investigation released Tuesday show. Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl resigned earlier this month amid city and state investigations into her conduct during the November elections. She said in a message to The Associated Press that she hadn’t seen the investigation’s findings and declined to comment. According to the investigation, Dane County canvassers discovered 68 uncounted absentee ballots in a tabulator bin on Nov. 12, a week after the election, and another 125 uncounted ballots in a courier bag the first week of December. Read Article

Wisconsin: Rules committee deadlocks on vote to kill election observer rules | Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner

Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) deadlocked Thursday on whether to object to a proposed administrative rule that would guide the conduct of election observers at polling places. The 5-5 vote moves the rule one step closer to going into effect because if the committee doesn’t take any action, it will be returned to the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) to be implemented. Even though the rule was written by WEC with input from an advisory committee that included members of right-wing election conspiracy groups, election skeptics opposed the rule’s passage at a number of public hearings. Read Article

Wisconsin: Shouting match erupts at Elections Commission over Milwaukee ballot shortages | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A routine meeting of the Wisconsin Elections Commission erupted into a shouting match Thursday after one member attempted to discuss Milwaukee officials temporarily running out of ballots during the April 1 election. Commission chairwoman Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, threatened to eject Republican commissioner Bob Spindell for bringing up a topic that was not on the meeting’s agenda and refusing to stop after she ruled the comment out of order. Spindell ignored Jacobs’ order to cease discussing the matter, triggering an explosive back-and-forth with shouting and gavel pounding. The outburst took place during a rare in-person meeting of the commission in Madison. Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe and vice-chairman Don Millis, who were sitting next to the arguing commissioners, stared straight ahead during the spat without showing any emotion. Read Article

Wisconsin legislators seek to give candidates a way off the ballot besides dying | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

After two high-profile cases in which candidates were unable to remove their names from the ballot, Wisconsin lawmakers are weighing a change to one of the nation’s strictest withdrawal laws. Under current Wisconsin law, once candidates qualify for the ballot, they can only be removed if they die. The restriction received renewed attention in August 2024, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as an independent, unsuccessfully sought to withdraw from the Wisconsin presidential ballot — a request that ultimately reached the state Supreme Court. Read Article

How Wisconsin’s Washington County helped its municipalities expand early-voting hours | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

Absentee voting didn’t used to be popular in Addison, a rural town of 3,300 in southeast Wisconsin. A few days before the last Supreme Court election in 2023, only about 60 residents had cast absentee ballots in person. This year, at the same point in the election cycle, that number was over 300. The sharp increase is due partly to Republicans’ recent embrace of absentee voting, especially in the nearly two-week period before Election Day when voters can cast absentee ballots in person. Washington County, where Addison is located, is one of the state’s most Republican counties, and one of many Republican-dominated areas across Wisconsin where early voting rates have surged. Read Article

Wisconsin: Madison’s missing-ballot mess leads to an unusual claim for monetary damages | Alexander ShurVotebeat

Election officials in Madison are already facing a state and city investigation into the series of errors that resulted in nearly 200 absentee ballots not being counted in last fall’s election. Now officials there face a claim for compensation in an unusual case that aims to emphasize the importance of properly counting all ballots, and set a monetary penalty for denying a person their vote. A liberal election law group called Law Forward served a $34 million claim this month against Madison and Dane County, seeking damages amounting to $175,000 for each Madison voter whose absentee ballot got misplaced. The filing is likely a precursor to a lawsuit, as the group is seeking out other disenfranchised voters to join its case. Read Article

Some Wisconsin voters received inaccurate information in the mail. The response may be a sign of the times. | Anya van Wagtendonk/WPR

Last week, some Wisconsin voters began receiving postcards reminding them to vote in an upcoming election. The notes were backing Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate in the high-stakes Wisconsin Supreme Court race. They briefly described her background and encouraged voters to head to the polls. The problem? The postcards gave the wrong date. The actual election takes place on Tuesday, April 1. The postcards said it was 10 days later — on a Friday. Read Article

Wisconsin appeals court tosses improper temporary injunction for emailed absentee ballots | Destiny DeVooght/Courthouse News Service

A Wisconsin appeals court reversed on Wednesday a temporary injunction by the circuit court that would allow visually impaired voters to request emailed absentee ballots to be digitally marked and returned in person. In 2024, Disability Rights Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin filed suit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission, alleging the present absentee voting scheme is unlawful to print-disabled absentee voters because they cannot cast their ballot privately and without assistance. Specifically, they argued that this violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and Article III of the Wisconsin Constitution, which states that “all votes shall be by secret ballot,” according to the appellate brief. Read Article

Wisconsin voters give notice they’re suing over misplaced ballots in the November election | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

Four Wisconsin voters whose ballots were not counted in the November presidential election initiated a class-action lawsuit Thursday seeking $175,000 in damages each. The voters were among 193 in Madison whose ballots were misplaced by the city clerk and not discovered until weeks after the election. Not counting the ballots didn’t affect the result of any races. The Wisconsin Elections Commission investigated but did not determine whether Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl failed to comply with state law or abused her discretion. She didn’t notify the elections commission of the problem until December, almost a month and a half after the election and after the results were certified on Nov. 29. Read Article

Wisconsin’s inconsistent ballot instructions put voters at risk | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

In some states, a lack of required uniform instructions on how to cast and return absentee ballots is leading to voter confusion and sometimes disenfranchisement, disability and voting advocates say. States that provide less specific instructions or conflicting information put their voters at risk, said Barbara Smith Warner, executive director of the National Vote at Home Institute. “If the idea is that everybody has the same right to vote, then everyone should have the same information about how to do it,” she said. “Anything less than that just feels like a setup for voter disenfranchisement.” Wisconsin’s rules create just that sort of risk. State law requires the Wisconsin Elections Commission to develop uniform instructions for absentee ballots, but it doesn’t specify what those instructions should cover. Moreover, the law doesn’t explicitly require municipalities to actually use the WEC instructions. Read Article

Wisconsin Supreme Court Preserves Municipal Control Over Early Absentee Voting Sites | Rachel Selzer/Democracy Docket

In a 4-3 ruling, the Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed a right-wing legal challenge that sought to limit the authority of municipalities to designate early absentee voting locations and prevent future use of a mobile voting van deployed by the city of Racine during the 2022 election cycle. The majority opinion — from which all of the court’s conservative justices dissented — did not address the merits of the case, instead concluding that the individual plaintiff who sought judicial review lacked standing. Read Article

Wisconsin’s top election official heads off Republican attempt to oust her | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

What happened? The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously ruled last week that the state’s chief election official, Meagan Wolfe, can stay in her job even though her term has expired, heading off a yearslong effort by some Republicans to oust her. The court found that although Wolfe’s term expired in 2023, the Wisconsin Elections Commission had no duty to reappoint or replace her, because her position isn’t vacant. What’s the dispute? Wolfe became the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s administrator in 2018 after working for the agency and its predecessor in other roles, and has been a holdover appointee since the summer of 2023. She is considered one of the most respected — and scrutinized — election officials nationwide, but she became a Republican target after President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin in the 2020 election and took heat for the commission’s decisions in administering that election. Read Article

Wisconsin: Republicans raise questions about proposed election observer rules | Rich Kremer/WPR

Republican state lawmakers raised questions Tuesday about a 12-page rule proposal aimed at clarifying what Wisconsin election observers can and can’t do at polling places. The Wisconsin Elections Commission, which drafted the rule, says the package is needed because state law is vague on questions ranging from how close observers can stand to what documents they can look at. Election observers are individuals who oversee voters and local officials during the election process at polling places and central count locations in large cities where absentee ballots are processed. Read Article

Wisconsin: Who knew about Madison’s 200 uncounted ballots? Voters get conflicting accounts. | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

Madison voters and state investigators are getting conflicting accounts from city and county officials about what happened after batches of uncounted ballots were discovered in the weeks after Election Day in November. Madison’s city clerk says her office reported the first ballot discovery promptly to the county. The Dane County clerk says that didn’t happen. And the mayor’s office says it didn’t get word from the city clerk either. The communication breakdown, wherever it occurred, meant that ballots that still could have been counted after they were found weren’t included in the state’s final tallies. The Wisconsin Elections Commission is investigating. Read Article

Wisconsin Assembly sends voter ID constitutional amendment to voters | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin voters in April will decide whether to amend the state constitution to include the existing law requiring voters to show photo identification while casting ballots — a move Republicans are hoping will protect the law from being overturned by a liberal-controlled state Supreme Court. Assembly lawmakers on Tuesday approved a resolution 54-45 along party lines to ask voters in the April 1 election to approve the photo ID amendment. The vote was the last hurdle in a two-year process to amend the state constitution and will put the question to voters in the same election they will decide partisan control of the state’s highest court. State laws already require voters to show photo identification, but the measure now moves the question to voters in a statewide referendum on the spring election ballot. If passed, the rule will be included in the Wisconsin Constitution. Read Article

Wisconsin: Two changes that could speed up election results — and stave off conspiracy theories | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

It’s a known risk for the municipal clerks who run Wisconsin elections: Starting at 7 a.m. on election day, they have around 16 hours to finish counting every vote, or they may start facing accusations of a fraudulent late-night “ballot dump.” Those baseless allegations, which sometimes go viral, have plagued election officials across the state but especially in Milwaukee, where counting often finishes in the early morning hours after election day. Republican candidates have repeatedly cast suspicion on the timing of results in the largely Democratic city to explain away their statewide losses. Currently, there’s little election officials can do to finish counting ballots sooner. Under state law, clerks must wait until the morning of election day to begin processing ballots and counting votes, even if they received those ballots weeks earlier. Read Article

Wisconsin Elections Commission seeks answers on uncounted Madison ballots | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

The Wisconsin Elections Commission unanimously authorized an investigation Thursday into Madison’s mishandling of nearly 200 absentee ballots from the November 2024 election that were never counted. It’s the first such investigation that the bipartisan commission has authorized since becoming an agency in 2016. The review will allow the agency to probe whether Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl violated the law or abused her discretion. Read Article

Wisconsin Assembly Republicans pushing voter ID amendment, pre-election ballot processing | Adam Kelnhofer and Mitchell Schmidt/Wisconsin State Journal

Amending the state Constitution to require an ID to vote and passing a bill to allow clerks to start processing absentee ballots before election night are among Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ top priorities for this legislative session, Vos said Wednesday. Vos told the Wisconsin State Journal he wants the Legislature to move swiftly and approve the voter ID proposal at the beginning of the session so it can go before voters in the April election, which includes a high-profile race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Liberals currently have a 4-3 majority on the court, but that could change depending on who wins this spring. Read Article

Wisconsin Republicans will cast electoral votes for Trump in line with federal, not state, law | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

Wisconsin Republicans will meet Tuesday as required under federal law to cast the state’s Electoral College votes for President-elect Donald Trump, not a day earlier as state law calls for, after elections officials and the state Department of Justice agreed that is the proper day to do it. The Wisconsin Republican Party sued last week seeking an order to resolve which of the two dates it should meet. The state Department of Justice and the Wisconsin Elections Commission agreed that the votes should be cast Tuesday in accordance with federal law. The Justice Department asked that the case be dismissed. U.S. District Judge James Pederson dismissed the case Thursday because everyone agreed that federal law should be followed, essentially making the lawsuit moot. Read Article

How Wisconsin election chief Meagan Wolfe navigated years of job pressure | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

Shortly after former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman commenced his error-ridden and fruitless investigation into the state’s 2020 election, he raised eyebrows when he derided chief election official Meagan Wolfe’s clothing choices. “Black dress, white pearls — I’ve seen the act, I’ve seen the show,” he said on a conservative radio program in spring 2022. Not long after that comment, Wolfe was scheduled to appear at a county clerk conference, and a county clerk bought fake pearl necklaces for everyone in the room, according to Wood County Clerk Trent Miner, a Republican. “Every one of us, men, women … were wearing those pearl necklaces to show support for her,” he said. “There’s nothing but support from the county clerks for Meagan and the job that she does.” Read Article

Wisconsin: Conspiracy theorists again seize on Milwaukee election error | Alexander Shur/Votebeat

In the early morning following Election Day in 2020, Claire Woodall, then Milwaukee’s elections chief, mistakenly left behind a USB stick carrying vote totals at the city’s central absentee ballot counting facility. Election conspiracy theorists quickly seized on the mistake, accusing Woodall of rigging the election. Their claims were baseless, but the mistake increased scrutiny on the city’s election staff and led Woodall to create a checklist to make sure workers at central count didn’t overlook any critical steps in the future. This year, despite the checklist, Milwaukee election staff at central count made another procedural mistake — and once again left the door open to conspiracy theorists. Somebody — city officials haven’t said who — overlooked the second step outlined on the checklist and failed to lock and seal the hatch covers on the facility’s 13 tabulators before workers began tabulating ballots. For hours, while counting proceeded, the machines’ on-off switches and USB ports were left exposed. Read Article