Lawmakers introduce election bills intended 'tone down the rhetoric'. Here's what to know about the bills

MADISON - A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a slate of bills Thursday aimed at changing election rules in response to high-profile election controversies over the last three years.

Rep. Scott Krug, R-Nekoosa, said the lawmakers' goal is "tone down the rhetoric" with their proposals.

The draft bills, which were released this week, would address a range of issues raised since the 2020 election. More could come this fall that would be aimed at the state's voter rolls, said bill author Sen. Andre Jacque, R- De Pere.

Here's what the bills would do:

Protecting local election officials

One bill would prevent the public from accessing records containing personally identifiable information of election officials or election registrant officials, except for the name, city and state of residence.

It would also make it a Class I felony — which entails a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment of up to 3 1/2 years — to intentionally cause bodily harm to an election official, acting in his or her capacity.

The bill would also provide whistleblower protections for officials who witness and report election fraud or irregularities. It would also prohibit entities from discharging, disciplining, or demoting election officials who report or witness election fraud or irregularities.

The bill was authored by Jacque, Rep. Joy Goeben, R-Hobart, Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez, D-Milwaukee, Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, and Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee.

Costs for special elections

Another bill would require the Wisconsin Elections Commission to reimburse counties and municipalities for certain costs incurred in the administration of special primaries and special elections for the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state treasurer, attorney general, state superintendent of public instruction, justice of the Supreme Court, court of appeals judge, circuit court judge, state senator, state representative and district attorney.

The costs covered by the bill would be:

• Rental payments for polling places

• Election day wages paid to officials working the polls

• Costs for the publication of required election notices

• Printing and postage costs for absentee ballots and envelopes

• Costs for the design and printing of ballots and poll books

• Purchase of ballot bags or containers, including ties or seals for chain of custody purposes

• Costs to program electronic voting machines

• Purchase of memory devices for electronic voting machines

• Wages paid to conduct a county canvass

• Data entry costs for a statewide voter registration system

"When the Governor calls a special election for a state office, local municipalities are currently put on the hook for unreimbursed expenses for administering the special election (and special primary, if applicable) that can easily exceed a hundred thousand dollars across a single Assembly District, regardless of turnout," the bill authors said in a memo circulated for co-sponsorship.

"Local governments are already forced to stretch their budgets for election administration from two elections in odd-numbered years to four in even-numbered years. Under current law, special elections occur with very little control, and municipalities have to shoulder nearly all of the costs incurred. With little warning, these unexpected elections can have substantial fiscal impacts on local governments that already have limited budgets."

The bill was authored by Sortwell, Ortiz-Velez, Jacque and Taylor.

What happens if a candidate is convicted of campaign finance fraud

If a candidate is convicted of a Class I felony for campaign finance or fraud violations, the order a judge issues must include that the candidate's campaign committee be dissolved and that the candidate return funds to the donors in amounts not exceeding their original donation, or contribute the funds to the common school fund.

In addition, the bill would require that a new treasurer for the candidate committee be appointed, to carry out the court's order.

The bill would prevent any future misuse of campaign funds, the authors said in the co-sponsorship memo, and prevent any benefit to the person found guilty in the future.

The bill was authored by Ortiz-Velez, Sortwell, Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, and Sen. Jesse James, R-Altoona.

Polling place closures

A bipartisan proposal put forward by two Milwaukee Democrats and a Republican representing Two Rivers would bar election officials from closing more than half of its polling locations within a month of an election. In April 2020, officials in Green Bay and Milwaukee closed polling locations due to a shortage of poll workers amid fears of the new coronavirus pandemic, which had hit the state just a couple of weeks beforehand.

The measure proposed by Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, and Reps. Ortiz-Velez, and Sortwell, also bars local officials from closing any polling place within 30 days of an election without the approval of the local clerk and governing leader, such as a mayor or village president. The clerk must also post multiple notices of the temporary closure. If local officials want to discontinue the use of a polling location, the public must first be given a chance to weigh in, under the proposal.

“These bills are not intended to involve partisan politics, but rather to ensure that our elections are the best we can make them,” the bill co-authors wrote in a memo to colleagues seeking support. “There have been multiple attempts by city executives, notably in the city of Milwaukee, to close polling locations last minute, which led to the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters. Unprecedented long lines and the lack of efficient public notice caused many voters to not bother turning in a ballot or not make it to their proper polling location on time.”

Filing a complaint with the Elections Commission

Two Republican lawmakers are proposing to change the rules related to filing a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission to allow adult children of voters to file complaints even if they don’t live in the same area as their parent.

Allen and Jacque said in a memo to colleagues the bill responds to a situation in November 2020 during which “a constituent investigated and discovered that his 103 year old mother voted in the 2020 presidential election” even though she had told her child she did not want to vote anymore “and the adult child’s recognition that their mother could no longer recognize family members, much less candidates.”

The lawmakers said the constituent could not file a complaint because they did not live in the same voting district as their mother.

It’s not illegal for elderly residents with severe cognitive issues to vote. A voter may have his or her rights taken away by a judge who must rule the voter is too incompetent to retain voting rights.

How residents of nursing homes voted during the 2020 election in Wisconsin became a central focus of Republicans questioning the outcome of the presidential contest, even though recounts, an independent audit and a report from a conservative group all verifed the result that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by more than 20,000 votes in the state.

The attention to care facilities results from a pandemic-driven decision by the Wisconsin Elections Commission to advise clerks to ignore a state law requiring poll workers known as special voting deputies to try to visit the facilities twice to assist with voting before sending the residents absentee ballots.

The commissioners said adhering to the law during the early months of the pandemic would have wasted precious time because most, if not all, facilities were barring visitors at the time. Instead, commissioners advised mailing absentee ballots to the facilities to protect a population vulnerable to the coronavirus and to ensure the ballots got to the voters in enough time to cast them.

The decision prompted an investigation by the Racine County Sheriff's Office into voting in one nursing home after a family member of one of the residents reported their mother had voted despite having little cognitive ability to make such a decision. Similar instances of voting were cited by former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman as evidence of fraud in the 2020 election when he delivered a report in 2022 to Republicans in the state Assembly.

Requiring military I.D. for voting absentee

Military voters would be subjected to new rules under a separate bill released Thursday by a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

The bill is likely in response to a situation involving a Milwaukee election official fired last fall from her position as second in charge of the city's Election Commission over a scheme to fraudulently request military absentee ballots.

The bill would require voters in the U.S. military to provide his or her federal Department of Defense number on an application to receive an absentee ballot. Local clerks would be required to verify the voter’s military service with the state Department of Military Affairs.

The voter would also be required to complete a “consent for release of information form” provided by the clerk and approved by the federal Department of Defense. If the clerk was unable to confirm the DOD number before an election, the ballot would be considered provisional. If the clerk could not confirm the number before 4 p.m. on the Friday following an election, the ballot would not be counted.

A military voter who had not moved also would be required to provide his or her DOD number at least once every six years to keep receiving absentee ballots.

The bill was introduced by Sortwell, Ortiz-Valez, Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, and Taylor.

Signatures on nomination papers

Local election officials would be required to review all signatures submitted by a candidate under another bill, even if the number of signatures is more than required in order to ensure that the candidate has collected a sufficient number of valid signatures and can have their name placed on the ballot.

The bill was introduced by Ortiz-Velez, Sortwell, Rep. Lisa Subeck, D-Madison, James, Spreitzer and Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee.

Broadcasting election night proceedings

If a municipality broadcasts canvassing proceedings live for any election, this bill would require that the recording be retained for 22 months.

The bill was introduced by Sortwell, Ortiz-Velez, Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Green Bay, and Taylor.

Laura Schulte and Molly Beck can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and molly.beck@jrn.com.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin lawmakers release election bills to 'tone down the rhetoric'