Contact: Sen. Steve Nass (608) 266-2635
Senator Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), Co-Chairman of the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) issued the following statement in response to the Wisconsin Elections Commission meeting of December 1, 2021. The commissioners and staff discussed the response to the devastating audit from the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB). In particular, the commissioners and staff spent hours discussing their need to comply with the Wisconsin Administrative Rules Law:
“Today’s meeting of the Wisconsin Elections Commission leaves little doubt that the current commissioners and agency administrator are simply not interested or capable of coming into compliance with the findings of the LAB audit or provisions of state law.
After months of being pressured to come into compliance with the Wisconsin Administrative Rules Law on several aspects of the commission’s directives, the discussion by commissioners and staff left little doubt that they literally have no clue what the administrative rules law requires of them. The lack of knowledge regarding state law, in particular by the administrator, is either an intentional omission or pure incompetence.
Either way, the voters of Wisconsin should have no confidence in the Wisconsin Elections Commission or its actions as being fair or in compliance with state law.
It would appear that the JCRAR will likely have to urgently act to exercise its authority under the law to force compliance of the Wisconsin Elections Commission with state law or cease issuing inappropriate directives on state election procedures.”
