Wisconsin citizens unite to protect democracy

Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski speaks at a press conference to defend the ballot box and local election representatives, Oct. 30, 2024, in Madison | Photo by Wisconsin Examiner

As the air war of the 2024 campaign reaches a frenzied scale over our state on the battlefield, several civil society groups are quietly organizing on the ground to strengthen the foundations of our democracy.

Let’s take just three events that took place a week before election day:

• A bipartisan group of current and former elected officials signed a pledge to respect the results of the election — whatever they are.

• A separate bipartisan group of Wisconsin political leaders held a news conference to express their confidence in the security of Wisconsin’s election system and vow to fight back against people who question the legitimacy of the results — whatever they may be.

• Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski and community advocates for democracy held an event in downtown Madison to support the use of ballot boxes and protect local election clerks in a season of threats, intimidation and destabilizing conspiracy theories.

All these public declarations of confidence in the basic voting process we’ve taken for granted show just how far we’ve strayed from the norm.

As Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said at a joint news conference with former Republican U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, “It’s a no-brainer.” Still, two Wisconsin congressmen celebrated the announcement that they had gotten 76 of the state’s politicians to sign their pledge to abide by the results of the 2024 election.

Notable, however, is the list of politicians who agreed to respect what Ribble called “democracy 101” — that “the American people should decide who governs them; candidates must accept the results,” does not include many members of Donald Trump’s party.

So far, 64 Democrats, one independent and nine Republicans have signed the petition. Worse, almost every one of these Republicans has the word “former” next to their title.

Technically, state Sen. Rob Coles is still serving out the rest of his term. But the legislative session is over, and Coles won’t be back. After announcing his retirement, he made waves this week when he rejected Trump and supported Kamala Harris for the president. Other GOP officials who have pledged to respect the election results include former state Sen. Kathy Bernier, who heads Keep Our Republic, a group that fights election conspiracy theories and tries to restore trust in local election secretaries, and former state Sen. Luther Olsen . , a public school advocate who worked across the aisle before the current era of intense political polarization.

On the same day, Pocan and Ribble announced, another bipartisan group of Wisconsin leaders, members Democracy Defense Project – The Wisconsin state board held a press conference to highlight the protections in place to keep the state’s elections safe and to call out “bad actors” who might try to undermine the results.

Former Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen joined the call, along with former U.S. Rep. Scott Klug and former state Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate.

“I can speak from personal experience, having won and lost elections with very little competition, that the process here in Wisconsin is safe and secure, and that’s why you have this bipartisan group together,” said Barnes, who narrowly lost his a challenge to a US senator. Ron Johnson in 2022.

Barnes said false claims undermining the credibility of voting and rigging are “made by losers.”

If you lose an election, he added, “you have an opportunity to run again at some point. But what you shouldn’t do is question the integrity or try to challenge our election administrators just because people told you no.

Former AG Van Hollen, a conservative Republican, echoed that sentiment. “I’m here to tell you as the former top law enforcement officer in Wisconsin that our system works,” he said.

Van Hollen reminded the crowd that he pushed for Wisconsin’s strict voter ID law, which Democrats opposed as a voter suppression measure. “Whether you were for it or against it, the bottom line is that it’s in place right now. If people pretended to be someone else when they logged in and voted in the past, they can no longer do that,” Van Hollen said.

For voters of all stripes, he added, “Get out and vote. Your vote will be counted. Our system works, and we have to trust the results of this system.”

Former Republican congressman Klug emphasized that Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020, “and it had nothing to do with election fraud. It was simply due to people who decided to vote in a different direction.”

He also praised local election workers and volunteers, such as those who take his ballot at his Lutheran church, and “who make Wisconsin’s election system one of the best in the country.”

Tate, a former Democratic Party chairman, warned that unusually high early voting numbers and a state law barring clerks from counting ballots before polls close on election night would likely mean delays in getting results. “There’s a good reason for that,” he said, “because our good election workers are doing extraordinary due diligence.”

At a separate news conference outside City Hall in Madison, members of the Wisconsin Democratic Campaign and Secretary of State Godlewski also spoke out in defense of Wisconsin’s hard-working election clerks and combated conspiracy theories.

Nick Ramos, executive director of the Campaign for Democracy, linked the recent news about burning the box in other states before local buffer hijacking mayor of WausauWisconsin, who physically removed his town’s ballot box and locked it in his office. The mayor was forced to return the box, and now criminal proceedings have been opened against him. It’s important to prosecute people who try to interfere with the vote, Ramos said, because otherwise “people will try to imitate these types of bad behavior.”

In addition to supporting embattled election officials, the election press conference featured testimony from Martha Siravo, founder of Madtown Mommas and Disability Advocates. Siravo, who uses a wheelchair, explained that the presence of the box makes it much easier for her to vote.

Godlewski described talking to other voters around the state — a busy working mom, an elderly woman who asks for a ride for her kids when she needs to go out, and a young man who works the night shift — all of whom were able to vote by dropping absentee ballots into a secure drop box. but who may not have made it to the polling stations during normal voting hours. “These stories are real, and that’s why the drop boxes matter,” Godlewski said. The restoration of the drop boxes is part of “helping ensure that Wisconsin remains a state where every vote counts.”

This is the spirit we need to go into this difficult election and anything that comes after it.

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