WEC proposes new office of election transparency, compliance

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s election managers want to open a new multi-million-dollar office to focus solely on election transparency.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission approved a $2 million budget request to open an Office of Election Transparency and Compliance.

“The increase [in election integrity complaints] has been exponential. And there’s no question that our previous way of handling this is simply not up to the level that we want, to give service and responsiveness to,” WEC chair Ann Jacobs said at Wednesday’s meeting. “This proposal funds our responsiveness, I think, in a really positive way. And gives better customer service to those people who make open records requests or want their complaint heard within perhaps a month or two and not a year.”

Jacobs said creating an Office of Election Transparency is “what we have to do.”

The Elections Commission continues to deal with questions about how the state’s elections are managed, following the 2020 election that saw two investigations into the commission.

Neither of those investigations ended with any new answers about the election that former President Donald Trump and some of his supporters say was stolen from him.

Commissioner Don Mills said that continued skepticism is reason enough to open the new transparency office at the Elections Commission.

“The idea would be to audit the registration list,” Mills explained. “The idea was to have available to the staff, resources to do these things to increase confidence in election administration and the election process.”

Republican Commissioner Bob Spindell was the only no vote on the plan.

He wants more.

“I think a program like this would be good if…was basically run by two attorneys,” Spindell said. “One that’s appointed by the Republican leadership in the legislature. The other appointed by the Democratic leader in the legislature. So, both parties have the ability to have a view in terms of what’s going on. But I think just having an inspector general, or whatever you want to call em, doesn’t really achieve what I would like to see achieved.”

If lawmakers approve the plan, Wisconsin would not be alone in creating an election transparency office.

WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe said South Carolina recently approved a similar office for their election agency.

Gov. Tony Evers proposed a similar plan in his last budget, but Republican lawmakers stripped it out of the final state spending plan.