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Election "Count" Legislation put on Hold
Wisconsin lawmakers will not be voting on the Monday count legislation this fall.
Rep. Scott Krug, R-Rome, who is driving the plan to count absentee ballots the Monday before Election Day told a hearing at the Capitol he still doesn’t have enough support to get the proposal through the State Senate.
“I'm not going to introduce a bill that my caucus doesn't fully support,” Krug said. “I don't think my caucus is fully there. It's my job to get my caucus there. I have failed in that part so far.”
Some Senate Republicans worry that counting ballots the day before Election Day will tip-off Democrats in places like Milwaukee as to how many votes they need in order to win.
Krug has said counting absentee ballots early won’t do that, but will eliminate the early morning ballot drops in Milwaukee that tend to swing elections.
Krug presented a slate of other election reforms, including the use of central counts, voter eligibility, and pre-election voting machine testing. But Krug said the Monday count legislation is the most important of them all.
[I] see this job as like a football game. On the Monday process, it's fourth-and-short. There's 10 minutes left in the game right now, and I'm going to punt. There will be time to get the ball back later,” Krug explained. “We're going to have to have more conversations about it, because it is the single most important reform we could do to elections in the state of Wisconsin.”
The Assembly has approved a Monday count plan before, but it’s always stalled in the Senate. Krug hopes that waiting some more will finally do the trick.
“I think that if we can get some more input from the State Senate, I think we can figure out a way to get it done,” Krug added. “It's not going to happen in the fall floor calendar.”
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