Wisconsin voters approve bans on private funding for elections

Wisconsin voters approved a pair of Republican-led constitutional amendments on Tuesday that will change how elections are conducted in one of the country’s most politically competitive states. 

One measure will bar state and local governments from using private funds to conduct elections, while the other mandates that only election officials can carry out election-related tasks. 

With 99% of the votes in, 54.4% of voters had approved the first question, and 58.5% had approved the second, according to the Associated Press. A majority of Wisconsin voters must vote in favor of a constitutional amendment for it to go into effect.

Republicans have complained the state has turned into a magnet for “dark money” and that its elections were influenced by outside special interest groups. They also claimed that designating election-linked tasks to election workers would help clarify and streamline election administration. 

Democrats disagreed and accused Republicans of bowing down to former President Donald Trump, who lost to President Joe Biden in the state four years ago. They argued the amendments would create problems in administering elections in November, in which results could determine the winner of the presidential election, as well as the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. 

Republicans pitched the two questions to voters after Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI) vetoed a GOP bill that would have prevented local governments from taking outside funding for elections. Unlike bills, constitutional amendments cannot be vetoed. 

Republicans have scrutinized millions of dollars in private grants, which they refer to as “Zuckerbucks,” that went to the state’s five largest cities to help them run elections during the pandemic. The money came from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which is funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Election clerks and Democrats said the money helped them with the unexpected costs related to running an election during lockdowns and a global pandemic. They added that the extra funding did not jeopardize their ability to run an election fairly.

Republicans were not convinced and vowed to stop similar efforts. 

“Wisconsin has spoken and the message is clear: Elections belong to voters, not out-of-state billionaires,” Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming said in a statement. “Thanks to the efforts by the Republican Party of Wisconsin and grassroots organizing, Wisconsinites have turned the page on Zuckerbucks and secured our elections from dark money donors.”

Republicans also scored a win on the second ballot measure by claiming it will clarify who is allowed to perform election-related tasks and arguing that the goal is to prohibit private consultants from having too much power over elections. 

There is already a law on the books stating only election officials can conduct elections in the state. Part of the problem with the GOP-backed proposal, opponents argued, is it could be interpreted so broadly that it may exclude election volunteers or municipal staff who are not sworn election officials. 

“Our democracy depends on local election officials having the staff and resources to do their jobs,” the Wisconsin chapter of the ACLU said in its “no” pitch to voters. “The same politicians who put these questions on the ballot stripped millions in funding from the state budget to support election administration.”

Leading up to Tuesday’s primary election, high-profile Republicans such as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) posted videos in support of the measures. Johnson’s office was involved in a scheme to deliver fake elector materials to then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, while Jordan, a close ally of Trump, has repeatedly pushed false claims about widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election. 

Trump also repeated those false claims, saying he won the state during a radio interview on the eve of the primary election. 

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“We had a reelection the second time,” he said on WISN-AM’s Dan O’Donnell show. “We won in Wisconsin, as you know, the first time. The second time, we did much better.”

While it’s true Trump won in 2016, he lost in 2020.