Unverifiable Claims About Unverifiable Elections
The Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly are determined to deny Wisconsin voters verifiable elections. We can only speculate about their motivation but it certainly is not representing the interests of the people. For many months, as voters became aware of the serious flaws in the Wisconsin election system, they pressed their Senators and Assembly representatives to clean up the Registered Voter List and make it impossible for a non-citizen to vote using a valid driver’s license issued to them by the state of Wisconsin. These demands have fallen on deaf ears. Now, with a Supreme Court election, Congressional midterms, and the Gubernatorial election looming closer, Republicans are trying to sell us on a series of legislative changes that are meaningless without addressing verifiability.
Scott Krug is an Assemblyman from Wisconsin Rapids and Vice Chair of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections. Over the past couple of weeks, he made himself available to the media to promote election reforms his committee plans to advance through the Legislature. In addition to the fact that the Governor and Democrats in the Legislature have already signaled he is going to have a fight on his hands, the bills won’t do anything to address the fundamental flaws that make cheating in Wisconsin elections possible.
On September 25, I sent Krug the following communication outlining the problem and asking for a very specific response:
“I am writing today to ask you to explain why you and other Republican leaders remain silent on the root cause of the unverifiability of our elections which is the more than 4 million names of ineligible voters that the WEC maintains on our Registered Voter List and 250,000 Wisconsin driver’s licenses lawfully issued to non-citizens, who are here legally, that are indistinguishable from citizens’ driver’s licenses.
I am confident you are fully aware of the threat cybercrime poses with ‘secure’ databases being hacked literally every day. Our own state government publishes the list of Wisconsin companies that have been hacked each year with the personal protected information of millions of Wisconsin citizens being stolen. There is no greater motivation for the criminal hacking of a database than stealing an election.
Only when we have a clean Registered Voter List containing only the names of currently eligible voters will we be able to verify that every vote cast was cast by someone eligible to do so.
The measures your committee is pushing – drop box security, early counting and eliminating ballot curing - will be meaningless without election verifiability. I know you and your fellow legislators are hearing from many Wisconsin voters who want the Registered Voter List purged of ineligible voters and the driver’s licenses issued to non-citizens to be clearly marked ‘not for voting.’
A clear and specific response to the question ‘why are you not addressing the Registered Voter List and Non-citizen driver’s licenses?’ will be appreciated. The silence of the Republicans on the unverifiability of our elections is deafening.”
Scott Krug ignored my request. He did, however, find time to write an opinion piece for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last Sunday entitled “This bill can put an end to the biggest lie about Wisconsin elections”. In this insult to well-informed Wisconsin voters, Krug makes the ridiculous claim that “I am here to state, unequivocally, Wisconsin elections are safe…” He goes on to say that Wisconsin voters are most disturbed by elections that appear to be going in one direction late on election day but flip during the middle of the night after numerous ballots are dropped at central counting locations and tallied throughout the night. Krug contends “the now notorious ‘late night ballot dump’ is not nearly as nefarious as it sounds”. He wants Wisconsin voters to believe if the ballots that were received early are opened and prepared on the day before the election for counting on election day, and measures are added to detect any tampering with the early ballots, the concerns of voters will be resolved. He adds if there is evidence of tampering, a full recount will be ordered. Krug ends his op-ed with “Let’s be clear: Wisconsin elections are safe and secure. We elect leaders by close margins because our residents make independent decisions about who should represent them in Madison and Washington”.
Krug’s statements about the safety and security of Wisconsin elections demonstrate he is unfit to be a legislative point person on election security. He is either ignorant on the issue of verifiability or willfully turning a blind eye to the opportunities to cheat in Wisconsin elections. With 4 million names of ineligible voters on the Registered Voter List, his remedies will not detect that ineligible names have been hacked and used to create fraudulent ballots and cast fraudulent votes. With 250,000 valid Wisconsin driver’s licenses in the hands of non-citizens, his remedies will not detect that non-citizens have registered to vote and voted using a driver’s license for ID. Recounts are a meaningless exercise. Fraud, not miscounts, is the real threat to elections that reflect the will of the people.
Now is a good time to begin focusing on the Republican candidates for Governor. There are two so far: Josh Schoemann, the Washington County Executive and Tom Tiffany, a US Congressman from northern Wisconsin.
Schoemann was the first to jump into the race last May. He has a track record that includes focusing on election security. As a county administrator, he insisted on clean voter rolls and in 2024, as County Executive, he championed an election integrity package that was passed by the County Board and included eliminating central counts. In a face-to-face conversation with Schoemann, I was encouraged by the importance he places on election integrity, the work he has done, and the ideas he brought forward. We need to hear a lot more from Josh Schoemann on verifiable elections in the coming months.
Tom Tiffany just entered the race and immediately declared, “I am the leader in this race”. In an appearance on UpFront, a Sunday show on WISN TV in Milwaukee, he explained that he made the decision to run because he wants to position himself where he can do the most good for the people of Wisconsin and dubbed himself the “best candidate.” His opinion of himself was supported by Bill McCoshen, a Republican “strategist”, who declared Tiffany the “immediate front runner”. During the course of the interview Tiffany said, “The people of the state of Wisconsin want election integrity” and added “it should be easy to vote and hard to cheat”. When asked to expand on his priorities as candidate for Governor he responded: freeze property tax, fight culture wars and raise the money needed to win. We need to hear from Tom Tiffany on verifiable elections in the coming months.
Republican Party heavyweights immediately put their thumb on the scale with Glenn Grothman and Scott Fitzgerald, two of the US Congressmen from Wisconsin, throwing a fundraiser for Tiffany featuring Reince Priebus, former Chair of the Republican National Committee, as the headliner. McCoshen predicted the entire Congressional delegation from Wisconsin will endorse Tiffany. These career politicians either don’t understand or don’t care that conservative Wisconsin voters are not interested in who they think we should elect as Governor. We reserve the right to evaluate each candidate on their merits and decide through the primary process who we want to represent us in the general election. If Party leaders respected the will of the people, they would actively champion lots of opportunities for Wisconsin voters to hear from every candidate as a crucial step in a credible selection process. They should stay out of the way until the people have spoken.
In the coming months, the candidates for Governor will be traveling the state visiting with voters in every county. Voters should press them hard on what they intend to do to make our elections verifiable. There is no freedom if Wisconsin voters cannot verify that the people holding elected office are the people the majority wanted to be there. This is fundamental. The candidate who clearly and decisively includes addressing the Registered Voter List and the non-citizen driver’s licenses on a short list of top priorities is the candidate we will rally around to deliver a decisive victory.
In the meantime, we are not persuaded at all when we hear politicians’ empty guarantees that our elections are safe and secure. These are unverifiable claims about unverifiable elections.