MADISON, Wis. — The Dane Co. Election Security Task Force released its final report this week, which surveyed local clerks on their concerns about the safety of personnel, equipment and materials.
While threats against election workers were found to be more common, there were also concerns about the security of property such as voting equipment and buildings, including the City-County Building in Madison.
“According to Homeland Security, and just common sense, it is just not the best building for us to be in,” Dane Co. Clerk Scott McDonell explained. “There [are] too many access points. It's too easy to get in and out.”
However, McDonell also worries about threats from Mother Nature.
“Is the equipment and ballots safe from weather and humidity? All you guys got to do is Google what's happened with Madison equipment,” McDonell said. “It's been flooded twice and replaced twice.”
The task force found facilities for storing equipment and ballots for the required 22 months are not up to appropriate standards for such critical functions.
“Where appropriate, increase the security of those structures with access controls, barriers to protect the staff, increased physical security for the storage of election equipment,” UW-Madison political science professor Ken Mayer explained as he outlined recommendations during a Monday press conference.
Mayer, who conducted the survey of clerks, said while the results show what needs to be a priority, they shouldn't lead to any doubt about the results of the 2020 election.
“Our findings could be misrepresented as indicating that the 2020 election might be in doubt, and that's absolutely false,” Mayer said.
Though the report does not make recommendations as to how much money should be invested to improve security, it does suggest a timeline. The report encourages improvements to be made before the 2024 general election with the goal of those safety measures being able to handle county growth over the next 20 years.