Opinion: Your vote in WI is protected. Nonpartisan election clerks promote integrity.
As the Nov. 5 election nears, we are publicly expressing our support for the integrity of the elections process in Wisconsin. Our state has a long-standing history of offering fair and safe elections, and has long been seen as a leader in civic processes. We fully expect a fair and safe presidential election in 2024. Here are some of the key reasons for our confidence:
The Wisconsin elections process has built-in checkpoints, including the requirement of an official voter ID, the verification of identification of absentee voters, and cross-referencing local voter information with state records. The electronic voting machines are not connected to the internet.
All votes in Wisconsin are backed up by paper documentation. Official voting recounts at the local, county and statewide level, when requested, result in very few ballots being questioned.
The 2020 presidential election was audited by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau and the nonpartisan audit released in October 2021 did not identify any widespread fraud. Furthermore, the conservative law firm, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) also conducted an independent audit and they too concluded that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Both audits determined that the election results should stand.
Statewide elections in Wisconsin in 2022 and 2023 were successfully conducted without statewide complaints or concerns.
The Wisconsin elections process consists of nearly 2,000 clerks — 1,850 at the municipal level, and 72 county clerks — who administer Wisconsin’s elections. The clerks come from both political parties and they approach their work in a nonpartisan fashion. These clerks and their volunteer poll workers are your neighbors and community members, people who take their job of election integrity seriously.
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We publicly express our support for the elections process in Wisconsin, and we encourage citizens to resist succumbing to unsubstantiated disinformation and misinformation about the integrity of the election process. We encourage you to exercise your right to vote.
Lee Rasch, Rusty Cunningham and Joe Heim are members of LeaderEthics, a Wisconsin-based nonpartisan/nonprofit organization committed to promoting ethical leadership among elected officials.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Opinion: 2020 election results scrutinized and found to be accurate