Bipartisan Group Urges Trust in Wisconsin Election Process

Voters at the Humboldt Park Pavilion. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

A bipartisan group of former elected officials and party leaders are promoting trust in Wisconsin’s elections ahead of the presidential election next week.

Wisconsin and Milwaukee were at the center of an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and legal challenges to election results are expected again. Former president Donald Trump sued to have ballots in Milwaukee and Dane counties thrown out, potentially overturning the results in Wisconsin, swinging the election in his favor. The suit was thrown out on a narrow vote by the state Supreme Court.

Two Democrats, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former state Democratic Party Chair Mike Tate, and two Republicans, former Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen former U.S. Representative Scott Klug, are working together with under the Democracy Defense Project to urge Wisconsinites to trust the states elections.

During a briefing Tuesday with reporters, Barnes noted that he and Van Hollen have not agreed on a lot in the past, but on the issue of election integrity and the important role it plays in democracy, they’re of one mind.

“I can speak from my personal experience, having won and lost very close elections, that the process here in Wisconsin is safe and secure, and that’s exactly why you have this bipartisan group together,” Barnes said.

Wisconsin’s election system has many safeguards, including voter ID laws, Barnes said, noting that he didn’t support voter ID requirements when they were passed more than a decade ago. These safeguards “make our elections some of the most secure in the entire country,” Barnes said.

Van Hollen, who was state attorney general when voter ID was enacted in Wisconsin, rattled off a handful of election safeguards ranging from ballot machines that cannot be hacked to the bipartisan poll watchers that will be at many polling places on election day.

“I’m here to tell you, as the former chief law enforcement officer for the state of Wisconsin, that our system does work,” Van Hollen said.

The former attorney general added that efforts to erode trust in elections undermine democracy by discouraging voters from casting a ballot.

“And quite frankly, it shouldn’t be a subject matter we need to talk about it all, but it is, and because there are rumblings before the election even takes place of potential voter fraud, we need to reassure voters ahead of time, before it’s too late, that we believe that if you cast your ballot, it’s safe and secure and will be counted, Van Hollen said, “and the only way to have your voice heard is to cast that ballot.”

Klug noted that conspiracies about the 2020 election are just that. The results from congressional races in 2020 show that Trump simply didn’t win enough votes in Wisconsin, and the results had nothing to do with election fraud, Klug said.

The former Republican congressman noted that election conspiracies have demonized election workers, some of whom are professionals and others who are citizen volunteers working at the polls. He wasn’t alone in this point, Barnes also noted that the issue “has made the job of our election administrators much more difficult, and it’s also made the safety of some elected officials a little bit more difficult to manage.”

Voters should expect Wisconsin’s results to arrive late on election night, Tate said, “And there’s a very clear reason for that.”

Communities with central count facilities, like Milwaukee, are not allowed to begin counting votes until the polls open. Other states allow early votes to be processed ahead of time, allowing results to arrive faster on election night.

The slow results should inspire trust. Klug said. “It’s because our good election workers are doing and exercising extreme due diligence.”