New Report is Fourth Released This Year in Series Examining Election Administration in Battleground States

The Fair Election Fund (FEF), a nonpartisan national election integrity watchdog group, today has released its fourth in a series of reports examining election administration in key battleground states. The latest report evaluates the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s (WEC) management of previous elections, giving the agency a “D+” grade due to multiple administrative failures in recent elections that undermined public trust in the state’s electoral process and voter confidence, as outlined below.

In 2023, the WEC approved the use of a National Mail Voter Registration Form that did not meet the legal requirements outlined in Wis. Stat. § 6.33(1). The form omitted several mandatory elements such as residency duration, felony status, and voter ID fields, and improperly asked for race and party affiliation, which state law does not authorize. A court ruled that WEC had overstepped its authority and ordered the form withdrawn.

The WEC’s past offences also include an incident in 2020 where WEC staff, not the appointed commissioners, blocked Green Party presidential candidates from appearing on the ballot, despite the candidates meeting all legal requirements. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the decision in a narrow 4–3 vote, but dissenting justices criticized the move as procedurally flawed and politically biased. This incident deepened concerns about partisanship and lack of accountability within the Commission.

The WEC’s other alarming offenses are as follows:

• Illegal Absentee Ballot Handling
  • In 2020, WEC instructed clerks to fill in missing witness address information on absentee ballots, violating Wis. Stat. § 6.87(6d), which requires voters to correct such errors themselves.
  • In 2022, a state court issued a permanent injunction against WEC, ruling that it had exceeded its authority.
• Improper Use of Absentee Ballot Sites
  • The Milwaukee Election Commission only fully opened 4 of 27 designated absentee voting locations, restricting access and imposing appointment-only conditions, which are unauthorized.
• Limiting Election Observation
  • WEC limited observers to 2 per polling site (1 per party) at multiple large venues.
  • This contravened Wisconsin laws requiring open access for all observers.
• Faulty Voter Registration List
  • Citizen audit in 2024 found:
  • 50,000+ potentially invalid registrations
  • 2,250 at commercial addresses
  • 24 with incomplete addresses
  • 32 at non-deliverable addresses
  • 13 listed USPS office as residence
  • 5,080 where voters no longer lived at address
  • 6,187 moved out of state
  • 4,907 moved out of country

Click here to read the full report.

BACKGROUND:

• In April, FEF launched a new initiative, grading election administration officials in battleground states across the U.S.
  • The first report card graded Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson a “D” for her failure to bring confidence to Michigan voters.
  • The second report evaluated the North Carolina Board of Elections (NCSBE), which received a “C” grade for its election administration.
  • FEF’s third report examined Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, who received a D+ for shifting guidelines that hindered third-party candidate ballot access.
• In March, the Fair Election Fund filed commentary with the FCC on the issue raised against CBS for unlawful news distortion and coordination with the Harris 2024 Presidential Campaign in the network’s 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris last year.
• In August of 2024, the Fair Election Fund uncovered 60,000 potential cases of donor fraud involving the Biden-Harris campaign and ActBlue and turned over the data to Republican attorneys general across the country.
• The Fair Election Fund successfully stopped national Democrats’ voter suppression scheme in states across the country last year. In October 2024, FEF launched a six-figure paid media campaign that exposed Marc Elias’s failed racist lawsuits that tried to disenfranchise thousands of black voters who signed petitions to get Cornel West on the ballot in their respective battleground states.
• The Fair Election Fund invested over $750,000 in paid media efforts last year to expose the Democrats’ attempts to block Kamala Harris’s competition from the ballot. The Fair Election Fund invested in states such as North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Click here to learn more about the Democrats’ failed election interference scheme and how the Fair Election Fund stood up for voting rights.
• Last year, the Fair Election Fund launched an investigation examining the jury summons responses and voter rolls in key swing state counties to identify voter fraud.