I’m disappointed. This week showed me exactly why so many Wisconsin voters have lost faith in our elections.
The Green Bay City Clerk mailed out more than 150 duplicate absentee ballots to the same people. That’s not a small mistake. When voters who already sent in their ballots started getting duplicates in the mail, you’d think the clerk would have a plan to make sure those illegal ballots didn’t get counted. Instead, she basically said “oops, system glitch” and wouldn’t explain what she was actually going to do about it. And the sad thing is these errors continue to happen again and again. I’m glad the Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a complaint against Green Bay to hold them accountable.
One voter, one ballot. It really is supposed to be that simple. When an election office can’t even get that right, people start to question things. They lose trust. And they have every right to. How do we allow these major issues to continue happening? We need to learn from others’ mistakes too, not just our own.
Then on Election Day itself, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Chris Taylor was reportedly caught recording campaign videos within 100 feet of a polling place in Madison while people were voting. That’s illegal in Wisconsin and it’s called electioneering. A judge should know that. The fact that someone we just elected to our highest court apparently doesn’t know basic election law is honestly baffling to me.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission and appropriate authorities need to investigate both of these situations.
We need election officials who actually care about getting this right, and we need candidates who understand and respect the law enough to follow it. That starts with holding people accountable when they fail. It’s time Wisconsin voters see some consequences for election failures.
