MADISON, Wis. (AP) — One of the leaders of the Legislature’s rules committee demanded Thursday that the Wisconsin Election Commission submit draft regulations to his panel governing absentee ballot drop boxes and corrections to absentee ballot information.
Republican Sen. Steve Nass. the rules committee’s co-chairman, wants the commission to submit draft rules codifying guidance the commission supplied to local election clerks as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold in March 2020. That guidance dramatically expanded the use of absentee ballot drop boxes to include mail slots at municipal facilities and book return slots at libraries. It also stated that clerks could set up alternate sites for returning absentee ballots.
Republicans are upset with the guidance because officials in Madison, a Democratic stronghold, used it to justify collecting ballots in city parks ahead of the 2020 presidential election. The GOP argues that the move opened to the door to fraud, however there is no evidence that it did.
An Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states where former President Donald Trump is still disputing results, including Wisconsin, found fewer than 475 cases, a number so low it would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election. Some of those charged with fraud are registered Republicans or told investigators they were Trump supporters.
The review found that election officials in Wisconsin have referred 31 cases of potential fraud to prosecutors in 12 of the state’s 72 counties. That amounts to about 0.15% of Joe Biden’s margin of victory in the state.
Nass also wants the commission to submit draft rules codifying guidance issued in October 2016 allowing clerks to fix address mistakes in witness addresses on absentee ballot envelopes.
Absentee voters must get a witness to sign off on the ballot and supply his or her address on the ballot envelope. The commission said clerks could fix mistakes in witness addresses on their own without contacting the witnesses or voters. Republicans don’t want clerks to fix such mistakes unilaterally. Instead they want them to contact the witness or voter to correct the address or discard the ballots.
The guidance in both cases amounts to little more than advice from the commission and isn’t binding on clerks.
Submitting draft rules would give Nass and other Republicans on the committee a chance to invalidate them, which would in turn negate the guidance. State law gives the commission 30 days to submit the rules.
Nass wants to the committee to vote next Tuesday on motions that would formalize his demands. He said in a news release that Assembly Republicans on the panel have yet to agree on scheduling such a vote. The committee’s Assembly co-chairman, Republican Rep. Adam Neylon, didn’t immediately respond to a message left at his Capitol office.
Elections Commission spokesman John Smalley had no immediate comment.
Meanwhile on Thursday, Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn declined to hold Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in contempt for not following a November court order to turn over records related to an investigation Vos launched into the 2020 election to liberal group American Oversight.
The judge said she doesn’t know how thoroughly Vos and his staff has searched for the records. She scheduled another hearing in the case for Jan. 24.
Vos hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gabelman this summer to review the election at a cost of $676,000. He has said Gabelman holds the records in question.