Republicans file election complaint over poll worker balance
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin Republicans filed an election complaint about the balance of poll workers in Madison and Milwaukee.
The RNC, along with the Dane County and Milwaukee County Republican Parties, filed two complaints with the Wisconsin Elections Commission that allege election managers in Madison and Milwaukee didn’t hire enough Republican poll workers.
“Wisconsin election officials defied state law by refusing to hire a fair number of Republican election inspectors, despite having hundreds of Republican nominees available. This is the kind of misconduct that drives down faith in elections,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. “The Republican Party is filing these complaints to compel election officials to follow the law and guarantee bipartisan access to important election administration positions in the Badger State.”
State law requires election managers to work off a list of approved poll workers, but the Republican complaint accuses Madison and Milwaukee of ignoring hundreds of qualified Republican workers.
“The Republican Party had submitted 149 qualified names, meaning that election officials in Madison rejected roughly two-in-three qualified Republican nominees,” the RNC said.
In Milwaukee, the complaint says that resulted in 215 Democrat poll workers and 49 Republicans. The split was 60 Democrats and 51 Republicans in Madison.
“Wisconsin law requires officials to fill election inspector slots from lists submitted by each party “until the names on those lists have been depleted.” Yet both cities hired thousands of unaffiliated election inspectors before exhausting the list of Republican nominees,” the party added.
The RNC wants the Elections Commission to remind election managers in both Milwaukee and Madison of what the poll worker law is, and to order those election managers to follow that law in future elections, particularly the November election.
