The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.
Listen up, Wisconsin! We’ve always been good at preparing for the future. Right now, we’re preparing for winter and the holidays. Soon, our farm friends will be preparing for the spring planting. Preparation is a way of life in our state.
Once the 2026 mid-term elections are over, presidential politics will take over as we prepare for 2028. If recent history is any guide, Wisconsin’s role in the presidential election will again be decisive. Whatever one’s politics, we need to all make sure that every legal vote in Wisconsin is counted, and that our votes in the electoral college reflect the outcome of the election.
Here is an issue where Wisconsin Republicans, Democrats and Independents can all agree. We cherish our common sense, fair, and transparent election systems that function smoothly. There is just one small thing that could cause a major problem, and we need to correct that possibility before the 2028 elections begin.
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When we Americans pick our presidents, voters from all fifty states cast their ballots by election day in early November. Then, once the results are certified, each state appoints a group of presidential electors who are responsible for convening in December to cast their state’s electoral votes. Finally, Congress counts those electoral votes in early January leading to the presidential inauguration.
But heaven forbid if electors in any state decide to cast their electoral votes contrary to the outcome of the election in their state! In a very close election, in a very polarized nation, faithless electoral votes of this sort could literally cause unprecedented questions about the outcome.
In 2016, after Donald Trump secured his first term as president, a shortsighted campaign from the left pressured presidential electors to reject their certified state outcomes and instead cast faithless electoral votes. As a result, ten presidential electors did attempt to go rogue – although their success varied considerably based on the laws of their respective states at that time.
Crucially, the U.S. Supreme Court has helped clear the way since then for more states to take action on the threat posed by faithless electors. In a unanimous decision, the Court affirmed that every state has the right to pass laws in advance that would remove and replace any elector who refuses to honor their state’s vote in the election.
About half of all states already have such laws in place. Our neighbors – Iowa, Illinois and Michigan – have enacted this commonsense reform. As a state always among those most contested, and thus most watched by the entire nation, we need to do the same.
The benefit of passing such a law would be two-fold. We would protect the integrity of the voters’ voice in our elections, and we would protect the patriots who are nominated to serve as presidential electors since there would be no benefit for extremists of any kind to try coercing them if the law makes clear their electoral vote must reflect the outcome of the statewide vote in the election.
I know from personal experience as a Wisconsin lawmaker that passing legislation is much easier said than done. And it takes much more time to enact a law than one might anticipate. This is why the State Legislature needs to start work soon to enact a commonsense technical reform that people of good conscience on all sides can – and should – support.
– Steve Gunderson represented Wisconsinites as a Republican in the State Assembly from 1975 to 1979 and in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 to 1997.
