MADISON — Recent action by the Wisconsin Elections Commission shows that MacIver’s commitment to election integrity is forcing officials to take notice and address key failings in our election system.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission recently took up two high-profile issues MacIver has doggedly covered: Green Bay’s repeated duplicate-ballot mailings and Milwaukee’s August 11 central-count reporting failure. Public pressure brought by MacIver and others ensured WEC did not bury either item. That is the point. When the public is paying attention, officials know they cannot treat sloppy ballot handling as a private paperwork problem.
“Accountable government does not happen because officials promise it,” MacIver CEO Annette Olson said. “It happens because citizens stay educated, stay involved, and keep watching. That is why the MacIver Institute exists — and the work MacIver has been doing on election integrity in Wisconsin is making a difference.”
Details of the relevant agenda items are below.
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GREEN BAY: ACCOUNTABILITY MUST PRECEDE THE FINAL DECISION
Item E was the Green Bay duplicate-ballot investigation and the related complaint, Sipes v. Jeffreys (EL 26-12). The facts in this matter are not a mystery. In April, Clerk Celestine Jeffreys reprinted a duplicate batch of 152 labels that had not been filed away. Before the August primary, labels went to the city’s own Print Shop, and an unknown number of duplicate ballots were again printed and mailed.
WEC staff told commissioners the Green Bay clerk’s office answered as fully as the facts allow. The root problem was reprinting without verifying that labels were actually missing. WEC Attorney Supervisor Angela O’Brien Sharpe said some facts “appear to just be unknowable.”
The Commission did not take a final yes-or-no vote on whether Jeffreys broke the law. It directed staff to draft a proposed decision letter and final order under Wis. Stat. § 5.06(6) on whether she acted contrary to law and/or abused her discretion, and to bring the issue back for a vote on Wednesday, September 9.
The city now requires a second person’s approval before any reprint. If a printing error is found, the whole set is discarded and logged.
MILWAUKEE: A DELAY, A TRUST PROBLEM, AND A PAPER TRAIL STILL DUE
Item F was Milwaukee’s August 11 primary. Staff at Milwaukee’s Central Count downloaded audit logs instead of unofficial results from five of nine tabulators, delaying the posting of 27,187 absentee totals by about an hour.
Milwaukee is supposed to post the August 11 central-count tabulator audit logs, the EL-104s — the election-night paper log that poll inspectors fill out at a polling place or central-count site — and the precinct-processed reports by September 4, along with a training plan so unofficial results are exported correctly next time. That public file should also include the cast vote records, the date- and time-stamped record of every tabulated ballot, not only the audit logs.
The Commission voted 6–0 to wait for the promised uploads and bring the item back after September 4.
The MacIver Institute is a leading Wisconsin-based think tank that promotes free markets, individual freedom and responsible government. Keep up with MacIver’s commentary and research at MacIverInstitute.com. To schedule an interview with a member of the MacIver staff, email info@maciverinstitute.com.
