For years, the process of local vote counting was a quiet, bureaucratic process handled by trusted neighbors.
“I do enjoy the work,” said western Wisconsin clerk Sue McDonald.
Today, the atmosphere inside the Eau Claire County Clerk’s office is markedly different. Clerk Sue McDonald, who has served the county since 2021 following nearly a decade as deputy clerk, admits that the job has grown drastically more taxing.
“Going into fall this year, with all of the focus on elections and election security, we’ve all been on—I don’t want to say high alert—but just very, very conscious of all of the work we do and making sure that we’re very thorough and that we’re very organized,” McDonald told UpNorthNews.
Election workers under scrutiny
Election workers face unprecedented scrutiny from a mix of election deniers and political misinformation.
What’s more, historically, state and local officials run US elections independently, while the federal government plays a passive role. However, the Trump administration has shifted this dynamic by utilizing the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to actively monitor, investigate, and pressure local poll workers.
“It brings a little extra anxiety—with the focus being so much on election workers—it’s high stress for some people,” McDonald said.
Since Donald Trump’s false claims surrounding his loss in the 2020 presidential election, the typically quiet, behind-the-scenes job of administering votes has been thrust into a highly polarized spotlight.
William Garcia, who is the chair of the 3rd Congressional District Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said the scrutiny is frivolous.
READ MORE: ‘Hip, hip, hypocrite!’: Wisconsin protesters slam local GOP over election denier event and Tom Tiffany’s history
“Clerks have done such an incredible job of tracking the ballots, of having these safe and fair elections that we can really trust,” he told UpNorthNews. “And then to have these Republicans come out with no data, with no evidence to say, ‘Oh, you’re doing it wrong, you’re doing it terrible,’ it just makes everything they do harder.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he won battleground states like Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in 2020, stating at various rallies that “we won this state by a lot.”
Official certified vote counts, which were verified by multiple statewide canvasses and recounts, confirmed that Joe Biden won the states and the overall presidency.
In Wisconsin, Biden defeated Trump by 20,682 votes. A partial recount and a series of state and federal court decisions affirmed those results, while the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau found no evidence of widespread fraud in the election.
“We should not be making counting votes more difficult,” Garcia said. “We should be making it transparent and fair—and that’s what our clerks already do.”
According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, Wisconsin requires a paper record of every vote that’s cast in the state.
State and federal election results are triple-checked. Results aren’t official until they’re checked at the municipal level, double-checked by the county, and certified by the state. As part of this review, election officials ensure that there are not more ballots than voters.
“We want to reassure people that everything is being done to keep elections fair,” said McDonald. “We have proof our work is done correctly, nothing is tampered with, and the results are accurate.”
Local election officials use only certified voting equipment. Ballots are counted on local voting machines that have been certified at the state and federal level, ensuring the equipment is accurate and in good working order. Local election officials are required to conduct a public test of their electronic voting equipment before each election.
“We need to be uplifting the clerks of this state—Democrat and Republican clerks both—instead of demeaning them and using them as some sort of a scapegoat,” Garcia said.
Election deniers get the mic
While the professionals running local precincts are now operating under intense day-to-day suspicion from a vocal minority, Garcia said individuals who built their brands on disproven election claims are being welcomed with open arms by Wisconsin Republicans.
Backed by local political organizations, far-right conservative activists like Peter Bernegger and Scott Presler moved from the fringes of the ”Stop the Steal” movement onto mainstream Wisconsin platforms, actively mobilizing voters around disputed claims of election fraud.
In Wisconsin, Bernegger, from New London, is known for sending barrages of requests for election-related records and suing when he is dissatisfied with the results. He has spent several years bombarding local election offices in Wisconsin with litigation and accusations of fraud.
He’s brought at least 18 lawsuits against election clerks and offices in state court, and on social media he has relentlessly promoted his litigation and circulated false claims about election fraud.
His campaign landed him in legal trouble. Bernegger was criminally charged for allegedly falsifying a subpoena in connection with a lawsuit against the state’s top election office.
Yet in 2022, Bernegger was invited by Republicans to a state Assembly committee to give testimony on voter fraud. Now, he’s been fined more than $2,400 by the Wisconsin Elections Commission for making frivolous complaints.
Garcia called these activists’ ability to influence mainstream conservative politicians and fuel public mistrust “terrifying.”
“One of the things that should unite us all as Americans—Republicans, Democrats, independents—should be the need for a safe and fair election without any kind of interference from any political party or political group,” Garcia said. “But the fact that we’ve got people who have shown that they are willing to bend the laws in their favor if the votes don’t go their way is completely un-American and terrifying.”
Presler, a Virginia native, helped plan and organize multiple “Stop the Steal” rallies that promoted false claims about widespread voter fraud following the 2020 presidential election. Presler was also on the grounds of the US Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
“Presler has now been indicted for voter fraud in Pennsylvania,” Garcia said. “Time and time again you see Republicans blaming other people for doing things they do.”
“It’s Republicans who are constantly yelling, ‘Oh, this is bad. This is bad.’ None of the things they’re yelling about are true.”
Protesters confront election deniers in Eau Claire
In September, local protesters slammed Wisconsin Republicans—particularly the Republican Party of Eau Claire. The local county party hosted Presler at its headquarters, alongside US Rep. Derrick Van Orden from Wisconsin, who was also on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. Van Orden has also falsely claimed there was a “tremendous amount of voter fraud” during the 2020 presidential election.
Cyndi Greening of the group Chippewa Valley Indivisible led the protest at the Republican Party’s office in Altoona.
“It wouldn’t have mattered what party hosted them—we don’t think you should be inviting J6 election deniers to the state at this time, especially to canvass, so that’s why we came,” Greening said. “These folks showed up for Stop the Steal—they spoke there, they organized it, and they tried to take away our vote and tried to suppress the last election and we don’t want that to happen again.”
“Presler was here campaigning for Derrick Van Orden,” Garcia explained. “And so Derrick Van Orden is once again on stage with an election denier, which shows that we can’t really trust anything that Derrick Van Orden is doing.”
The group of more than 100 protesters also targeted US Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican nominee for governor.
Tiffany only recently acknowledged publicly that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
Greening said she believes it’s only because of negative voter feedback that Tiffany is shifting his position. “I don’t trust that,” she said. “I think it’s just election flip-floppery.”
In December 2020, Tiffany signed on to a Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate Joe Biden’s victory.
On Jan. 6, 2021, he voted against certifying the results in Pennsylvania and Texas just hours after rioters threatened to kill his colleagues. He has stated he would have overturned Wisconsin’s results, too, and just this year endorsed an FBI investigation into the state’s elections.
Locals are mobilizing against election deniers to protect the vote
Local communities are pushing back against election deniers to defend the voting process. In Eau Claire, the city council recently passed a resolution formally declaring trust in election officials.
Council member Joshua Miller said people were sending council members messages regarding the November 2026 election. “They expressed trust in the clerks and election officials but were apprehensive about national news reports that seemed to cast doubts on the election process.”
“Some examples included a proposal for the USPS to implement more restrictive rules on mail-in voting, or talk that federal agents might be dispatched to polling places,” Miller said.
Miller and another council member drafted a resolution that affirmed trust in the election process “to assure the community that their votes will be counted.”
Miller told UpNorthNews that “the resolution noted that the actions and conduct of our election officials are regulated by state law, and that the election process is a robust system that has been conducted for decades in the city justly and in compliance with all election laws.”
Miller said he has confidence in the voting system, not only in Eau Claire but across the state. “The same process is used at all polling sites: absentee voter information is verified and witnessed, ballots are securely stored and transported, voting equipment is tested and certified, every vote has a paper trail, the public can observe the process, and election results are triple checked,” he said. “These protocols are followed statewide.”
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is also running a Voter Protection Program designed to monitor polling places, help voters, and prepare legal responses to potential voting issues.
“We’re going to have lawyers on standby in case Republicans do anything weird,” Garcia said. “We’re going to have poll watchers to make sure that everyone is doing everything they’re supposed to do.”
“The Democratic Party is working very hard to make sure that everyone’s vote in Wisconsin is fair and counted.”
READ MORE: 3rd District debate: Cooke talks about affordability, Van Orden talks about Cooke
