Trump: End mail-in voting. Wisconsin: No thanks

Democrats, Republicans, and Independents point to our state’s long history of secure elections that embrace absentee ballot use to make democracy more accessible.

When President Donald Trump launched his latest verbal assault on mail-in voting and vowed to find ways to end it, the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission was ready.

“Whoo Nellie,” Ann Jacobs posted on social media. “This morning’s mostly-all-caps anti-voting screed from the current resident of the Whitehouse is a true casserole of everyone’s favorite conspiracy theories which a bunch of paranoia & authoritarianism thrown in for flavor.”

Jacobs then reviewed the accuracy of voting machines (“Here in Wisconsin, we test the machines before voting, and audit them after. And they pass every time!”), tabulator machines (“Do you know what humans are really really bad at? Tabulating ballots. It’s boring, repetitive, and machines are much faster & more accurate… especially when there are multiple races on a ballot”), and the Constitution (“It literally (explicitly! for reals!) states that elections are up to the states to administer unless Congress passes a law that supersedes state laws.”)  

There was immediate and bipartisan pushback to Trump, who told a right-wing cable channel host after his unsuccessful summit with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, that Putin agreed with his false claims about the 2020 election being rigged because of mail-in voting. (Putin has had election rules changed repeatedly in order to stay in power for two decades.) 

Trump said an executive order “to lead a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots” would be coming. But several former Wisconsin officials from both parties were quick to note presidents can’t do that.

“The Constitution is clear: the federal government does not administer elections at the state level,” said former Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, former Republican Attorney General JB Van Hollen, former Republican US Rep. Scott Klug, and former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate in a statement on behalf of the Democracy Defense Project. “Wisconsin has displayed time and time again that our elections are safe and secure.”

Wisconsin voters can use absentee ballots in several ways. They can mail them back to their local clerk. They can use absentee ballot drop boxes. They can vote early, in-person at their clerk’s office. 

And they use these methods profusely. More than 1.5 million absentee ballots were cast during last year’s presidential election in Wisconsin.

“You know what voters really like? Mail in voting!” Jacobs continued in her post. “It’s convenient, it’s easy, it helps all sorts of people participate in voting. That’s why 36 states have implemented it (in various forms). You know what else? There is no greater rate of fraud for mail in ballots than in-person!  What is that rate? Oh, about between 0.0003% and 0.0025% by some measures.”

The four former officials with the Democracy Defense Project also noted that Republicans have historically been against federal government involvement in election administration.

“Just half a decade ago, Republicans in Congress vehemently opposed [a Democratic election reform bill] for many of the same reasons – that the federal government has no place in managing the individual elections of states.”

Unlike the Trump idea to reduce options to voters, the Democratic bill would have ended partisan gerrymandering, strengthened ethics rules, and added new protections to voting rights.

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