The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.
As you go to the polls or fill out your absentee ballot (mine’s right in my bill bin!), please remember Wisconsin’s proud tradition of clean elections and vote accordingly. We’ve got 1,850 local clerks who diligently run our elections — smoothly and efficiently. They are aided by a cadre of volunteers: you, your neighbors, and other civic-minded individuals who insist on doing their duty in our democracy, ensuring that everyone who is eligible can cast a ballot.
The U.S. Constitution, in Article 1, Section 4, gives to the states the authority to run elections, and Wisconsinites should be proud of how well we’ve done. We’ve had many close elections but, in recount after recount, the evidence has proven that the initial outcome was the correct one. Only due to the election fraud allegations around the 2020 elections were our results cast into question. Those allegations were proven false. Two attorneys are being prosecuted here in Wisconsin for knowingly spreading the false allegations.
Unfortunately, ugly signs are emerging once again that your vote here in Wisconsin and around the country might be called into question. Invoking the Insurrection Act or declaring a national emergency before Election Day is being floated nationally as a possibility, which would allow the deployment of U.S. troops to patrol our polling places or even, perhaps, to try to cancel the elections or to overthrow the election results.
That’s why it’s so important to vote for candidates who will honor our elections, respect our votes, and not to go along with any attempts to undermine our electoral system. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We always must be mindful of those who would take that consent away and, by so doing, exercise unjust powers.
That’s not Wisconsin nice, and that’s not the Wisconsin way.
Matt Rothschild is the former editor of The Progressive magazine and former executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. He’s the author of “12 Ways to Save Democracy in Wisconsin,” published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Rothschild is a member of United Wisconsin.
