WI Elections Commission Denies Ballot Access for Some Candidates

Vote here sign. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission met Tuesday to adjudicate more than a dozen challenges to the nominating signatures of candidates for the Legislature, U.S. Congress and Secretary of State.

During Tuesday’s more than three-hour meeting, the commission largely rejected the candidacy challenges and approved candidates’ efforts to place their names on the ballot. The challenge process gives opponents and political parties a chance to disqualify a candidate before any votes are even cast. Anyone is able to challenge a candidate’s nomination papers — usually on the grounds that the signatures are missing information, not collected from within the proper district, that the forms include errors or the candidate did not fully comply with the nomination requirements.

Because the challenge process represents a chance for candidates to reduce their competition, challenges are sometimes made to try to winnow out potential primary candidates or get an opposing party candidate off the November ballot.

Earlier this week, right-wing radio host Dan O’Donnell reported that in a “highly unusual move” the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee had filed challenges against two incumbent Assembly Democrats — Milwaukee Reps. Russell Goodwin and Sylvia Ortiz-Velez.

Both Goodwin and Ortiz-Velez have at times been at odds with the rest of the Assembly Democratic caucus. Goodwin voted with Republicans on anti-trans legislation while Ortiz-Velez has frequently clashed with Democratic leadership in the chamber.

The ADCC denied that it challenged Goodwin’s candidacy and records show that the challenge to his nominating papers came from his primary opponent Jordan Roman, who alleged that Goodwin’s papers included addresses that didn’t exist and forged signatures. The commission found that those allegations couldn’t be proven and approved Goodwin’s candidacy.

However Morgan Hess, the ADCC’s executive director, did file and then withdrew a challenge to Ortiz-Velez’s nominating papers, WEC records show.

Hess also filed challenges against Republican candidates in the suburban Milwaukee Assembly Districts 9 and 21 and in the Stevens Point area Assembly District 71. The only successful challenge was against Veronica Diaz, a Republican attempting to run in AD 21, who was disqualified from the ballot because 10 of her signatures came from people outside of the district and she didn’t file the proper paperwork declaring her candidacy and disclosing her financial information with the state Ethics Commission. Diaz’s papers were also challenged by her primary opponent Zach Pfaffenbach.

Challenges were also made in a number of congressional races.

In the 3rd Congressional District, where Democrats are seeking to unseat incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden in a closely contested race, the state Republican party filed a challenge against Rustin Provance, who is running for the seat as an independent.

The party argued that Provance should be disqualified because he used the state’s standard declaration of candidacy form, which includes a line in which candidates swear they’ve never been convicted of a felony — because state law prevents convicted felons from holding state or local office. There is no similar prohibition for federal candidates, and Provance has been convicted of a felony and has publicly referenced his conviction on his campaign materials.

In the challenge, the party argued that Provance had falsified his information by signing and filing the declaration with the non-felony conviction line included. WEC denied the challenge and granted Provance access to the ballot.

In the 6th Congressional District, Brian Norby, the chair of the Jefferson County Republican Party, filed a challenge against Democrat Elizabeth Anne Fitzgibbon — arguing that her invalid signatures included college students at UW-Oshkosh whose address was only listed as the residence hall they live in.

WEC denied the challenge on the grounds that those students’ mail can be delivered with just the dorm listed instead of a street address.

In the 8th Congressional District, the Republican Party of Brown County and Democratic primary candidate Rick Crosson filed challenges against Democratic candidate Mark Scheffler, arguing that Scheffler’s signatures were collected on the wrong forms and listed the wrong election date.

WEC denied the challenges and granted Scheffler access.

In the 2022 election, Democrats challenged the ballot access of Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels because of confusion over which municipality should be listed as his residence on the papers. Michels was allowed to get on the ballot.

In this year’s governor’s race, no official challenges were made against any candidate’s nominating papers. But left-wing political gadfly and Minocqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad was officially denied access to the ballot Tuesday after the commission voted to certify that he only turned in 1,504 of the required 2,000 valid signatures.

Bangstad’s initial nominating papers had a number of problems, including circulators omitting their municipality of residence and missing or incorrect dates. Bangstad filed 15 affidavits in an effort to correct his errors, but WEC did not agree that the errors were fixed.

This year, the only statewide race to see nomination challenges was the contest for Secretary of State. Challenges were made against Republicans Nathan Pollnow and Cindy Werner and Democrat Eileen Newcomer. Pollnow and Werner were approved but Newcomer was denied access to the ballot because her papers included a number of duplicated signatures.

WEC is scheduled to meet again Wednesday afternoon to consider more ballot challenges in races for which the incumbent is not seeking re-election but didn’t file a declaration of non-candidacy.

Hess, the ADCC’s director, filed a challenge against Jon Aleckson, a Republican running to replace Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon) in south central Wisconsin’s Assembly District 50. In the race to fill Rep. Tom Tiffany’s open 7th Congressional District seat, Republican Jessi Ebben filed challenges against Republicans Michael Alfonso and Kevin Hermening and Democrat Fred Clark.

WEC is scheduled to meet at 3 p.m. Wednesday.

Elections commission hears challenges to candidates’ ballot access was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.