The Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) on Wednesday approved new manuals for election observers in the state, outlining new rules for conduct.
The new wording of the permanent administrative rule was approved 5-1 by the commission. It will now be sent to Governor Tony Evers, who can decide to send it to a legislative committee for final approval. If it is approved, it will go into effect after the November election.
The administrative rule sets the guidelines for election observers, including their conduct, positioning within polling places, and proximity to certain activities. It also outlines the process for observers to challenge activities they witness, specifies when and how election officials may remove them from polling places, and details the permissions for members of the media, such as rules for taking photos or videos inside polling locations. It also outlines the penalties for election interference.
Voting booths on Wisconsin’s state primary day on August 9, 2022, at Concord Community Center in Sullivan. Wisconsin’s election commission has approved new rules for election observers.
Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images
While the new wording has not been made publicly available, Republican Commissioner Robert Spindell, who cast the only no vote on the administrative rule, said he objected to the penalties, arguing that telling observers they’re subject to fines and imprisonment if they interfere with someone voting might discourage people from observing.
“I can’t tell you how terrible I think this is in terms of the observers,” he said, according to the Wisconsin Examiner. “It’s trying to discourage observers, and what will happen when this thing gets out, it’ll be published, and they’ll start putting that in there. If you’re an observer, you’re going to get put in jail for six months and $1,000 fine and all this stuff. So I think it needs to be completely, you know, completely revised.”
Democratic Commissioner Ann Jacobs disagreed, telling the Examiner: “If people are like, ‘I don’t like the existing rules,’ well, that’s fine, they can make a petition about that. But the thing is, what we’re writing down is you don’t have the right to disturb an election site. And if the chief inspector tells you, you know, I’m denying your challenge and you need to go and return to your observing, and they refuse, yeah, the chief has the right to remove them. That’s already the law. If people are worried about that, then they have to think about their own behavior.”
The new rules come after Donald Trump and others made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election when he lost to President Joe Biden.
The former president and his allies championed efforts to overturn the results in swing states including Wisconsin and brought lawsuits challenging the election results in Georgia where he lost by 0.24 percent. They were all dismissed after the election was confirmed by a manual count.
In August 2023, Trump was indicted in Fulton County on criminal charges, including racketeering and conspiracy, related to his alleged efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia. The former president has pleaded not guilty, and the case against him is pending.
Since Trump became the 2024 Republican nominee for president, fears have mounted that he may try to interfere with the election after he suggested he would accept the results only if “everything’s honest.”
“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that,” Trump said in an interview in May with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”
Amid those concerns, Don Millis, a Republican member of the elections commission, said the new administrative rule is about increasing trust.
“To me, it doesn’t matter whether the concerns are really well-grounded in fact, or maybe only partially well-grounded in fact,” Millis said during the commission meeting Wednesday. “I think it’s incumbent upon the commission to investigate, to make sure that we can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are no problems.”
Before 2020, Wisconsin’s elections agency received an average of 15 formal complaints each year. After 2020, that average surged to more than 50 complaints annually, the Wisconsin Examiner reported, citing data shared by WEC staff.
Wisconin’s election board has faced a legal challenge from independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is attempting to remove himself from the ballot in the state after exiting the race and endorsing Trump.
Polls are currently very close in Wisconsin, with Vice President Kamala Harris 2.7 points ahead of Trump, according to FiveThirtyEight. Amid the close race, Kennedy vowed to remove himself from the ballot in all swing states so as not to take away votes from Trump. But in Wisconsin, he may not be able to.
After he had his name removed from the ballot in Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina, Kennedy’s request was rejected in Wisconsin when a county judge ruled that a full court hearing must be held.
According to Wisconsin law, “any person who files nomination papers and qualifies to appear on the ballot may not decline nomination.” In his appeal, Kennedy Jr. and his attorneys argued that the commission misinterpreted state law and the word “qualifies.”
“Before the ballot was approved, Kennedy withdrew his candidacy and since he cannot be drafted into being a candidate—against his will—he no longer ‘qualifies’ as one,” the appeal argues.
Absentee ballots are due to be sent out on September 18.
Newsweek has contacted the Wisconsin Elections Commission for more information and the governor’s office for comment.
