Intimidation of election officials in Wisconsin has to stop
The recent pattern of attempted intimidation of state and local election officials, combined with attempts to inject partisan influence over the casting and counting of votes, has thrust Wisconsin into the harsh spotlight of a destructive nationwide trend which, if successful, will corrode public faith in our election process.
We formed the bipartisan Election Officials Legal Defense Network precisely in response to these extraordinary developments — threats of physical harm and of criminal prosecutions directed against election officials who will not bend to one party’s desired outcomes. The network is managed by the nationally-respected, nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, and includes a bipartisan advisory board of more than 30 election officials and experts from around the country. All officials and staffers under attack who want free legal representation will have access to it through the network. We have been gratified by the number of lawyers and law firms prepared to offer their services, and seek additional volunteers.
To underscore our commitment to this effort and make clear the availability of support through the network for election officials in Wisconsin as well around the nation, we will be holding a press event in Madison with election experts and a Wisconsin state senator to address the nature of this threat and the response that we believe is required.
Actions and threats of prosecution by some Wisconsin legislators and the Racine County sheriff illustrate why the network is necessary.
Wisconsin has become ground zero for attempts by political actors to achieve partisan control over a state’s election process. The state has featured baseless threats of criminal prosecution directed at members of the Wisconsin Election Commission and its executive director. Law enforcement personnel issuing these threats have been irresponsibly encouraged by state legislators, who have also authorized a “review” of the 2020 elections that appears to be chasing its own tail while loudly attacking without evidence the election results’ accuracy.
As the network co-chairs, we are committed to ensuring that election officials can defend themselves against the kinds of baseless, personal attacks for doing their jobs that the nation is observing in Wisconsin. These actions have come against the background of repeated affirmation, in the legal recount process and the courts, that, in fact, election officials successfully and accurately administered the 2020 election. Recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, requested by Donald Trump as the losing candidate, produced only an 87vote shift — in President Biden’s favor.
Moreover, what is happening in Wisconsin and elsewhere is a classic, deeply destructive case of what goes around will come around — if Republicans succeed in tilting the playing field, they won’t be able to govern because Democrats
in turn will not believe the election results.
This vicious cycle has no good outcome.
Our bipartisan concern to defend the concept of elections run by pros rather than pols dates back to our work on the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. President Obama named us, a Democrat and a Republican, to co-chair the commission charged with examining the state of election administration in the United States and making recommendations to remove barriers to voting for all eligible voters. For one year, the commission engaged with election officials around the country to consider nonpartisan measures to support them in running the well-managed elections voters deserve.
In public testimony and dialogue with these officials, we were impressed with how they carry out their responsibilities, typically with limited resources. The commission’s final report noted that these “officials find themselves second-guessed and heavily criticized when elections run into problems, and praise is not forthcoming in comparable volume — or at all — when the process runs smoothly.” And it stressed that “Over the months of its preparation of this report, the commission arrived at a renewed appreciation of how hard, diligently and effectively the vast majority of the country’s election officials work to provide well-run elections for voters — and how difficult the job is.”
Law enforcement personnel and other public officials who abuse their positions for partisan political purposes should remember: They cannot engage in this kind of conduct with impunity.
Prosecutors are subject to specific disciplinary rules that prohibit the pursuit of baseless charges. Wisconsin law separately provides those who are victims of malicious prosecutions with legal remedies. And public officials are accountable under the Legislature’s code of ethics that holds that “high moral and ethical standards … are essential to the conduct of free government.”
Politically motivated harassment and threats directed at public servants for doing their duties clearly violates those standards.
A sure sign of a spiral downward will be any attempts to deprive election officials and their staffs of lawyers whom they feel are acting solely in their interest. We will actively oppose any such interference with the right to counsel. The network’s goal is to make sure election officials and their staffs have lawyers in which they have full confidence.
Our states and local communities, and our democracy, owe a deep debt of gratitude to professional election administrators. In this moment, they need and deserve support in defending against assaults on work so vital to our country. The network stands ready to do its part.
Bob Bauer served as White House Counsel during the Obama administration, and is a professor at New York University School of Law. Ben Ginsberg practiced election law for 38 years representing Republican candidates and parties, and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a Lecturer at the Stanford Law School.