Little Change In Voting Rules For April

A timely question:  When I next vote — in the April 5 general election, Aug. 9 primary and Nov. 8 general election — what changes can I expect? After all, the 16 months after the November 2020 presidential election has seen constant Capitol controversies over how Wisconsin’s votes were cast and counted and Republican legislators’ moves to investigate that vote and rewrite election laws.

The answer may surprise you. For most voters, there’s just one change: You won’t be able to leave your absentee ballot in an unmanned drop box before the April 5 election. And whether unmanned drop boxes can be used in August and November elections will be decided by the state Supreme Court.

Really? You mean all that Capitol drama, rallies, finger-pointing and insults — Republicans who kept control of the Legislature in the November 2020 election insisting that there was fraud in President Joe Biden’s 20,600-vote win over President Donald Trump and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vowing to “preserve democracy” with vetoes — resulted in no major changes in how I vote in person or absentee?

Yes. For most voters.

Advocates for disabled voters are concerned about another court-ordered change, however. “The Disability Vote Coalition is united in our concern about a new barrier that is in place for the April 5th elections,” Barbara Beckert, of Disability Rights Wisconsin, told legislators this month.

“Voters are no longer able to receive assistance with absentee ballot return due to the Waukesha County Circuit Court’s decision that only a voter, and not another person, must mail or deliver the elector’s ballot,” Beckett said. “Many voters with disabilities and older adults must rely on a friend, family member or care provider to place their ballot in the mailbox or return it to their clerk. We are concerned that the prohibition on absentee ballot return will make it difficult,  if not impossible, for many disabled and elderly Wisconsin voters to return their ballots in the manner they have used for years.”

Overall, the Democratic governor has vetoed, and will continue vetoing, all the election-law changes passed by Republicans who control the Legislature.

One change Evers would have supported is allowing the counting of absentee ballots before polls close at 8 p.m., but the Legislature failed to pass this. The current law, which results in middle-of-the-night reports of voting totals in big cities, inspired the Stop the Steal conspiracy theories of Trump supporters.

The change to allow the early counting of absentee ballots was supported by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, but came under attack from an outspoken segment of the GOP base. The inability to find a compromise on this and other proposed changes shows the level of distrust by leaders up for re-election on Nov. 8. The names of Evers, Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu will be on that November ballot.

Last week, Vos told Trump supporters that Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College ballots cast for Biden cannot be revoked. “The Constitution and my oath that I took as an elected official does not allow me to decertify any election, whether I want to or not,” Vos said. “That’s not going to happen.”

However, Vos added, “I think there was widespread fraud” in Wisconsin’s vote for President, although lawsuits, audits and investigations found no such fraud.

The last batch of Republican bills Evers has promised to veto would: Prohibit anyone other than the voter, an immediate family member or a legal guardian from returning an absentee ballot. Bar election clerks from filling in any missing information on a voter’s absentee ballot envelope. Require voters to provide a copy of a photo ID every time they request an absentee ballot. Give the Legislature control over guidance delivered to local election clerks by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Limit voters who can identify as “indefinitely confined.”

Every Republican change was “devised without any Democratic support or with any discussion with non-partisan voting rights groups,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin. Republicans passed those changes “to try to gain even further partisan advantage in future elections and, to appease their far-right, conspiracy-theory driven, 2020 election deniers who –  while not a majority in the GOP – most certainly drive the Republican agenda and are far more outspoken and active than the few Republicans willing to speak the truth,” Heck added.

Heck noted that two leading Republicans who have said there was no fraud in the 2020 presidential election – Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke and Sen. Kathy Bernier, a former Chippewa County clerk – are leaving the Legislature..

This month’s Marquette University’s Law School poll asked respondents about their confidence in Wisconsin’s 2020 vote for president.

“Among all registered voters, 67% are very or somewhat confident the votes were accurately cast and counted in the 2020 election, while 31% are not too or not at all confident,” said pollster Charles Franklin, who added:

“There has been a decline in skepticism among Republicans since August 2021, while independents who lean Republican have remained evenly split.

“Independents who do not lean to a party became more skeptical of the election between August and October” – when their confidence fell from 79% to 55% – “and then changed little in February.”

Responding to the Supreme Court order banning unmanned voter drop boxes on April 5, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin said it will offer “drive-up, staffed drop boxes” next Saturday and on April 2 at nine Milwaukee early voting sites.

Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com