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Just as Wisconsin is heading to the polls next Tuesday, calls from Washington to nationalize

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elections.

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The executive order President Trump signed this week would create a national list of

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U.S. citizens eligible to vote and restrict mail-in ballots.

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This order is not in effect for our April 7 election, and Democrats have filed a lawsuit

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over it, but does it perpetuate mistrust in the voting process?

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We turn to the chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Jacobs, and thanks very much

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for being here.

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Happy to be here.

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So what is your reaction to President Trump's executive order?

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I think it was at best unfortunate and at worst unconstitutional.

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The administration of elections is delegated by the U.S. Constitution to the states, and

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Congress can make laws regulating elections, and an executive order is neither of those

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things.

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And so it's your belief that this would not be in effect for the November elections or

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in effect ever.

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My suspicion is never in effect ever.

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It's sort of a backdoor way to create time limits and new administrative hurdles for

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voters to go through under the auspices of addressing essentially what our conspiracy

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theory is about absentee balloting.

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So if it were to go into effect, what would the ramifications be in Wisconsin?

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So in Wisconsin, by way of example, you can request an absentee ballot five days before

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an election, and you are eligible to vote if you've been a resident of Wisconsin for

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28 days.

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So a new resident of Wisconsin could come and ask for a ballot and have the right to

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vote.

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Under the executive order, however, that name and that address had to have been submitted

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to the U.S. government prior to 60 days before the election.

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So you create conflicts between the statutory rights under state law with this mailing deadline,

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and now the government's going to control whether they will even mail your ballot.

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And how do you undo that?

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What is the remedy if the government says, oh, you weren't on the list, so I'm not going

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to mail your ballot, ha ha.

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And the reason they're not mailing it is maybe because there's a typo in a list somewhere,

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or you moved, or what have you.

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So it's really just sort of creating an unnecessary and unworkable mess.

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In your mind, is it more possible with mailing ballots to experience voter fraud?

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No, the short answer is no.

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There's a number of checks and balances involved in addressing mail in ballots.

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First of all, you got to be registered.

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Being registered in Wisconsin requires a driver's license or the last four digits of your social

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security number if you don't have a license or ID.

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It has to go to your registered voter address.

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If you're sending it somewhere else, we send a postcard to your registered voter address

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saying, hey, did you order this ballot to go somewhere else?

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It requires a witness with an address to sign your absentee ballot envelope that affirms

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that they know you and they saw you complete this ballot.

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And then when it comes in to the elections, municipal clerks across the state, they check

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it off, check it in, and that ballot then is tallied.

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There's just a lot of checks and balances along the way.

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This executive order also seems to be trying to get at the issue of only U.S. citizens voting

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because that is considered in some corners rampant with fraud.

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What is your knowledge of whether that is happening here in Wisconsin?

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What is your knowledge of the citizens voting?

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We actually have some numbers on that.

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There are four documented cases of non-citizen voting since 2016.

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During that time, 25 million ballots have been issued in the state of Wisconsin.

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And if you want to do the math, it's like 0.000000 something something of all ballots cast.

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This is quite simply not an issue and not a problem.

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Non-citizens, generally speaking, don't want to get in trouble with the U.S. federal government.

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And that's why we haven't seen really hardly any numbers of non-citizen voting.

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And even those cases where non-citizens have voted, many times it's because they've received

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some sort of legal status that they incorrectly believed entitled them to vote.

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Is this executive order separate though from the USDA suing Wisconsin to turn over redacted

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voter registration data?

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Let me clarify.

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They're not asking for redacted voter data.

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They're looking for unredacted voter data.

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They're looking for your complete name, date of birth, driver's license number, and social

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security number.

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That information under Wisconsin law is protected.

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We don't give that out, and that's a state law that prohibits that.

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And I think we've also seen recent disclosures of, I believe it was a Doge employee who loaded

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the entire, some sort of entire social security database onto a thumb drive and took it elsewhere.

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Wisconsinites want their private information protected.

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They don't want it going out to be shared by the government with random anti-voting

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entities so they can, quote, investigate non-citizen voting.

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So the government's asking for private information, not the public information.

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They're welcome to have the public information.

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One can go to BadgerVoters.wi.gov, I think, BadgerVoters' website, and order the entire

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Wisconsin ballot voter roll.

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As to our question at the head, do these moves out of Washington cause mistrust in elections?

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Yes, I think it waters and fertilizes the seeds of conspiracy theories and distrust, and it's

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so important for people to, if they've got questions, to ask the people running the elections.

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And that could be their municipal clerks, that can be their county clerks, and that

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can be the elections commission.

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We always encourage people to come to our website.

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We have an FAQ page.

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We probably have answered any concerns voters have about voting, about absentee balloting,

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about all of that.

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So I really encourage people to do that.

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All right.

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And Jacobs, thanks very much.

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Thank you.

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Yes, I had a typo in my question.

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Thank you.

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Unredacted, unredacted, thank you.

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That's all right.

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I thought maybe you were testing me.

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No, I wasn't.

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I would not be so foolish, madam.

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I caught it, so all is well.

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All right.

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Thank you so much.

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Have a good weekend.

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Well, have a good day.

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Thanks.