Earlier this week, Donald Trump spent his day off from his criminal trial in New York
to visit Wisconsin for a rally in Waukesha.
During the speech, Trump repeated his lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020, and we're not going to
allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024.
We won't have a country left.
Again, the 2020 election was not stolen, but we show you that clip because the big lie
relates to a rule change currently being proposed by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
The rule would determine how close election observers can get to voters when they cast
a ballot at the polls.
And Republicans recently announced they plan to recruit 100,000 election observers nationwide
in an effort to, quote, make sure that victory can't be rigged.
Joining us now is Eileen Newcomer, voter education manager at the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin.
Thanks for your time today.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
So first, let's start with what an election observer is and why would the Republicans
want to recruit another 100,000 of them for 2024?
Sure.
Yeah.
And one thing that I think is important to know that here in Wisconsin, election observers
have more access than they have in other states.
But with that access comes additional regulations and responsibilities of election observers.
So an election observer is anyone who's interested in seeing how elections are run.
They can go into the polling place and observe what's happening.
They can observe during early voting.
They can observe the pre-election equipment testing, audits, recounts, a whole bunch
of different things.
And I think it's a really great opportunity for anyone who wants to learn more about how
our election system works to go and be an observer so that they can see for themselves
how it works.
So I've obviously covered the polls at prior elections.
Election observers are not new, as you've said.
And most of the time they just kind of sit in a chair in the corner and don't do very
much.
Many of the ones I've spoken to on prior election days say they're quite bored.
But what kind of fraud are they supposed to be looking for?
I know that we train our election observers to understand what the normal process looks
like so that they can identify if there's a deviation of the normal process.
And if it can be something as simple as the registrar not fully understanding all of
the proof of residence options and wrongfully sending them away because they thought that
something that was an acceptable proof of residence option isn't.
And so in that situation we would talk to the chief inspector and often it's just solved
right there.
So it really is kind of the minutia and mechanics of elections that observers are there to witness
and to see.
And to the comment about they're not really doing that much.
They really are there to observe, to witness, to document, to report things that they see
to if they want to escalate it, if they're not certain about something.
And that really has been something that's been happening in our state for many, many
years and that the league has been running our election observer program for over 10 years
now.
So let's talk about the rule change because part of this has to do with how far away an
election observer needs to be from the voter or from certain areas and it's this range
of three to eight feet.
Why is that important and what difference can that make?
Sure.
And I do want to clarify something.
The three to eight foot rule for election observers is actually in statute.
So that's not something that is really going to change with this proposed rule because
that's in the law and the elections commission can't supersede something that is in state
law.
I think that three to eight foot range does give, is there to give poll workers some flexibility
of where to station election observers where they can see what's happening but not interfere
with the voting process, not interfere with poll workers who are trying to conduct the
elections, not interfere with voters who are there to cast their ballot and exercise their
right to vote.
And I do think that three to eight feet is enough space for you to see what's happening
at what's going on.
I do know that some people want to be closer but three feet is really a short distance
even of itself and you can see what's happening with the current guideline that's in place.
Now these rules apply to all scenarios, not just the voting booth on election day as you
mentioned and there's central counts where there's been a lot of controversy specifically
in the city of Milwaukee.
If there's a recount there, election observers can be in those places as well.
What kind of rules do they play there as far as witness signatures and absentee ballots
and what kind of, I don't want to say chaos, but what could happen if someone was untrained
or new people coming in trying to create this image of fraud that may not be real?
What could happen if they're there?
Sure.
So if somebody is at central count, I know the things that we train our observers to
look out for is just making sure that they are properly processing the ballots, not counting
them before 8 p.m. because those are the rules and so we want to make sure that that is being
conducted fairly and they're also keeping an eye out for if ballots are being rejected,
why are they being rejected?
That could be because there's a missing witness address on the absentee ballot certificate,
maybe the voter didn't sign, things like that are the kinds of things that we're looking
for there and the way that it does run and really should run is that observers, if they
have an issue, they have a point of contact of who they talk to to figure out more information
about that issue, whether maybe it's their misunderstanding of how things should be operating
or if it is a legitimate concern, then they can be addressed in real time.
With that point of contact, it also means that the observers should not be talking to every
individual poll worker who's at the location and disrupting their work as well.
And then also the chief inspector or in the case of central count, usually the clerk is
the one running them, they maintain control of the location.
So if they ask somebody to leave because they're being disruptive, that person is required
to leave.
So there are a lot of safeguards to make sure that people can witness what's going on and
see how transparent our process is, but if they're unruly or disruptive to have those
people leave so that the elections can still go on.
Is there a role for observers to observe other observers in this sense?
Maybe people who are new to this process and don't know what they can object to or how
they can interfere or put themselves, insert themselves into the middle of the voting
process?
Certainly.
I know our observers, they monitor everything that's going on, including if there are other
observers there and if they're being disruptive and if they're being disruptive and nobody's
doing anything about it, they will escalate that to the chief inspector and say, hey,
we're responsible for maintaining this polling place.
This person is being incredibly disruptive.
Maybe they're intimidating a voter, maybe they're preventing a poll worker from doing
their job and that that person should leave.
And if the, at that point, if the chief inspector doesn't do anything, we do have routes
to escalate that further and make sure that the calmness of the polling place is maintained.
We've got just a few seconds left, but talk to me about this rule and whether you believe
it'll actually be in place by this fall, because the legislature can wipe out rules
in a moment to notice there's all sorts of lawsuit threats out there.
Yeah, we really support the rule as drafted.
We know there's been a lot of work that's gone into it.
A lot of voices have been listened to and drafting the rule itself.
I'm always hopeful that it'll be in place by the fall elections, but realistically,
it probably won't be in place until next year, just because the legislature has ended
their session.
So I think that's where it's at right now.
Right.
Well, thank you very much for your time today.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Yeah, that was so fast.
Cool.
That was actually a longer segment.
I'm glad that we were able to get all that in there.
I know our audience cares deeply about these things, and they don't always understand who
each person is at the polls and with this new potential influx of people coming in.
I know that having a group like yours that knows what they're doing and knows what they're
supposed to be watching helps to have our viewers understand what's going to happen.
Sure.
Good.
Yeah.
I know we didn't get to talk about this, but some things that are also helpful to know
are that you have to be a eligible Wisconsin voter to have a challenge, and so that might
be something that you want to talk about in the future, because if they're...
Is there have been out-of-state observers that have come in?
Yeah, you can come and observe if you are out-of-state any interested person, but if
you want to issue a challenge against the voters right to vote, you have to be an eligible
Wisconsin voter, and you have to have personal knowledge that that person can't vote.
Interesting.
And so if you're out-of-state, like how would you...
You like you can't challenge, and then how would you have personal knowledge about somebody?
All right.
Well, that is...
I'm glad you brought that up.
Is that something that we'll definitely look at for this fall?
Okay.
So when are your little...
Your trainings, do you have some coming up?
So our training will happen.
I think two or three weeks before the November elections, we're planning on having another
statewide program run for the November election.
We may have a smaller scale one for August, but that's still kind of being determined
based on need and if there are priority areas.
Okay.
We'll probably be in touch with you as we get closer then.
Okay, great.
Yeah, I'd be happy to come back.
Great.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you.
All right.
If you can find your way out of the maze here.