GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) — State Republicans are pushing voting reform, filing several bills targeting things they saw as issues during the 2020 election.
That includes the use of outside money in election funding, and defining who, exactly, is an “indefinitely confined voter”.
Brett Healy with the Macgyver Institute appeared Wednesday on WTAQ’s ‘The Morning News with Matt and Earl’, saying that clerks in Madison and Milwaukee used the COVID-19 pandemic to broadly allow people to claim they were indefinitely confined. Such voters don’t need to show ID to vote.
Healy says Republicans want to “Make it clear what exactly is an indefinitely confined voter. Make it clear that you can’t just declare yourself indefinitely confined to just because you don’t want to go to the polls.”
Also a target of Republican ire: an event hosted by the City of Madison.
“They had what they called ‘Democracy in the Park’,” explained Healy. “Ostensibly, it was so that people could drop off their absentee ballots, but there’s concern that the staff was doing more than just that.”
One bill would clarify that such events can only be used for dropping off absentee ballots.
“I think most of these bills stem from concern among Republicans that state law is not being followed,” said Healy. “President Biden won Wisconsin by 21,000 votes…and Republicans believe there were some activities and some procedures that were not on the up-and-up.”
Healy says the bills are doomed unless they can find some compromise with Democratic Governor Tony Evers. He floated the idea that Republicans could tie in a Democrat-supported idea to allow clerks to count absentee ballots before the polls close on election day.
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