Michels calls for election changes
GOP candidate for governor wants all WEC senior staff, commissioners fired
MADISON - Wisconsin’s election system would be dismantled under dramatic plans that Republican candidates for governor are crafting to appeal to the party’s base, much of which believes former President Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud in the last presidential election.
GOP primary newcomer Tim Michels is the latest candidate to propose sweeping changes to how the state oversees elections and provides ballot access to voters.
In a plan released Thursday, Michels called for all senior staff and appointed commissioners at the Wisconsin Elections Commission to be fired and the election guidance followed by around 1,900 local and county clerks to be repealed.
“In my business, we want to take a look at a problem and see what’s going on,” Michels said in a statement. “My plan is a fresh start, and allows us to bring in or bring back people who are ready to get to work to fix our elections, not make the problem worse.”
But his top primary opponent said the plan didn’t go far enough. Former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch has called for the state elections commission to be abolished altogether and its duties be moved to lawmakers or a partisan office with two positions and an annual budget of less than $250,000.
“Anyone who has been paying attention knows that the Wisconsin Elections Commission cannot be reformed. It must be abolished,” she said in a tweet.
Dissolving the state elections commission is a plan also sought by Kevin Nicholson and Tim Ramthun, who are running against Kleefisch and Michels in the GOP primary.
It is also the top recommendation made by former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who has been leading a taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 election for nearly a year and has not found any evidence to support Trump’s claims of appreciable fraud.
The aggressive stance on elections
comes as the Republicans running to defeat Democratic incumbent Gov. Tony Evers vie to curry favor with Trump and his supporters in the party. Evers has used the GOP efforts to overhaul elections in the state to present himself to voters as a goalie fending off threats to the state’s democratic process.
A spokesman for Michels did not immediately say what election rules would be in place for clerks in the February 2023 primary election, the first contest following the November general election.
If elected, Michels said, he would convene a special legislative session the day he is sworn in to pass legislation that would remove the six commissioners and top election staff within one month. The workers would have to reapply for their jobs.
Any staff who were involved in drafting guidance that conflicted with state law would not be eligible for rehire, according to the plan. At issue is guidance the commission gave in 2020 during the early months of the pandemic to help nursing home residents vote.
At the time, the commissioners agreed to recommend bypassing a state law requiring poll workers try to visit the facilities before sending absentee ballots. They said they made the decision to ensure the residents would get ballots in time to be counted.
The plan would also change state law to require voters who claimed to be indefinitely confined in 2020 to show photo identification to reapply for the status.
Wisconsin law allows voters to automatically receive absentee ballots for every election if they identify themselves as indefinitely confined. Those who are indefinitely confined do not have to submit a copy of a photo ID to receive their ballots, as other voters must.
Thousands of disabled and elderly people who cannot easily get out of their homes have long used the law. Voters decide for themselves whether they qualify as indefinitely confined and do not need to submit medical information to election clerks.
“In my business, we want to take a look at a problem and see what’s going on. My plan is a fresh start, and allows us to bring in or bring back people who are ready to get to work to fix our elections, not make the problem worse.” Tim Michels GOP candidate for governor
In 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic surged, the number of indefinitely confined voters exploded. That November, 215,000 voters claimed to be indefinitely confined, compared with 67,000 in the 2016 presidential election.
Republicans have since criticized the law, saying it lets people sidestep Wisconsin’s voter ID requirement too easily.
Michels’ plan would also give the governor the power to remove election officials found in contempt of court over election-related issues, ban private funding for election administration, and bar the use of ballot drop boxes.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu did not immediately have a reaction to the proposal. Vos and LeMahieu have previously said they want to keep the state elections commission in place rather than abolish it as other Republican candidates have proposed.
Lawmakers are already pushing a ban on private election funding through a constitutional amendment process that must pass two consecutive legislative sessions before going to voters for approval. Evers vetoed a previous bill designed to accomplish the same goal.
A recent court ruling also banned the use of drop boxes in the spring elections, but the matter could be revisited by the state Supreme Court.
Michels also said voter lists should be purged of inactive voters twice a year instead of every four years. Currently, state election officials make checks daily — but not purges — to inactivate such voters.