Conservative group finds no signs of widespread voter fraud in Wisconsin but urges changes to election processes
• The report by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty provides Republicans with material they can use to argue Wisconsin’s elections system needs to be overhauled. But it also includes findings Democrats can seize on to emphasize that there is no credible evidence to question Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump in Wisconsin.
• The report found "there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud" as the term is typically defined. However, WILL concluded fraud may be more difficult to identify because clerks around the state did not follow the same procedures. WILL’s team examined about 20,000 ballots and found no signs the ballots were fraudulent or miscounted. In Milwaukee and elsewhere, there was not a mismatch between the number of people listed as voting and the ballots that were counted. "Put simply, there was no unexplained 'ballot dump,'" the authors wrote. And, "There is no evidence of significant problems with voting machines."
• Still, the report recommended hiring separate attorneys for Democratic and Republican members of the state Elections Commission; allowing lawmakers to sign off on guidance the commission sends to election clerks; requiring the commission to issue decisions within 60 days after it receives election complaints; establishing minimum security requirements for ballot drop boxes, such as video surveillance; banning or limiting private grants to help local governments run their elections; setting clear standards on when clerks can fix errors on ballot paperwork; and requiring all communities to set the same hours for early voting.
Milwaukie Journal Sentinel
Wednesday December 8, 2021
