Lawmakers look to check Wisconsin Elections Commission’s directives
(The Center Square) – Lawmakers in Madison want to make it clear: The legislature creates the state’s election laws, not the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, on Wednesday said he intends to formally check the Elections Commission’s latitude to interrupt the state’s election laws.
“The Wisconsin Elections Commission and its staff have been issuing improper directives to local municipal clerks that raise serious questions regarding the integrity of absentee voting by residents of residential care facilities across the state,” Nass said in a statement.
Absentee and voting by mail in the November 2020 election continues to be a sore subject for Wisconsin lawmakers. Many Republicans at the Capitol continue to say there are unanswered questions about both absentee voting and indefinitely confined ballots.
Nass is specifically calling for restrictions on the use of special voting deputies who went to nursing homes, residential care facilities, and retirement homes ostensibly to assist residents with absentee voting.
“The law on special voting deputies and the absentee ballot process for residents of residential care facilities is crystal clear. The WEC has been issuing directives it has no authority to under the law,” Nass said.
Nass’ statement comes ahead of a meeting Thursday of the legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules where Nass says lawmakers will “compel the WEC to stop issuing directives.”
Nass said “state law does not empower the Elections Commission to waive” existing election laws.
The focus on ballot ‘assistance’ comes just weeks after a report from the Wisconsin Elections Commission that noted that 50,000 people who submitted an indefinitely confined ballot did not submit their ballot with voter ID. In fact, the Commission found those ballots came from voters who have not shown any voter ID since 2016.
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