From the US Constitution to nearly 2,000 local clerks, Wisconsin has what it needs to conduct secure elections despite an ongoing “Big Lie” about widespread fraud.
Attack ads, for better or worse, are a normal part of an election cycle, and many will be produced around some key races in Wisconsin. But this year’s midterm cycle already includes a line of attacks unlike anything seen in this nation’s history — a sitting president’s assault on election integrity and security, according to a former US Attorney for Wisconsin’s western district.
John Vaudreuil served as a federal prosecutor from 2010 until President Donald Trump took office in 2017 and demanded the resignations of dozens of US Attorneys. Now, he says Trump is intentionally sowing seeds of mistrust about the upcoming balloting — as well as his 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden — by demanding that elections be “nationalized” in select states, without providing details on what he thinks the federal government can do.
“Clearly a call to nationalize it runs directly 100% contrary to our Constitution,” Vaudreuil said.
Vaudreuil is working with Keep Our Republic, a nonpartisan group dedicated to defending democracy by informing the general public about the safety and accuracy of US elections, which the Constitution entrusts to the states rather than a one-size-fits-all federalized model.
“Right at the start, in Article I, the Founders said the elections’ time, place and manner, basically everything, will be set by the state’s basic law,” Vaudreuil said.
By spreading misinformation about elections, Vaudreuil said Trump sets the stage for demanding an unconstitutional change in election law.
“The big problem is when you sow the seeds of distrust in our election process, people listen and they think, ‘oh no, the elections are rigged or there are noncitizens running to the polls and casting their votes,’” Vaudreuil added. “First of all, that’s simply not true. Studies, tests have been done. Nonpartisan. Republican. Democrat. The elections are not rigged. Non-citizens do not vote in any great extent.”
Trump remains unburdened by facts in his claims about the 2020 outcome. He claimed this week that he won Minnesota three times, when he actually lost in 2016, 2020, and 2024. And in approving some (but not all) of the requests for disaster relief from flash floods in Milwaukee last year, Trump falsely claimed to win Wisconsin all three times even though he lost in 2020.
“Disinformation is an attempt to play you, so you’re frightened and you think the election is fixed,” Vaudreuil said.
Decentralized and secure
Wisconsin’s elections are especially safe from tampering, Vaudreuil said, because of its local-first design.
“We have 1,800 clerks,” Vaudreuil said. “County clerks, municipal clerks, village clerks, town clerks, some of them with only four or five voters in their township. All of this is done by our friends and neighbors, Democratic, Republican, independent, these are the people who are running our elections. And that decentralization essentially guarantees a fair election. An attack trying to sow distrust in that process is an attack on the friends and neighbors in Wisconsin and other states who run our elections.”
Trump supporters have made life miserable for many local clerks, to the point roughly 50% of top local election officials across 11 western states have left their jobs since November 2020, according to a new report from a bipartisan election reform group, reports Politico. It has led groups like Keep Our Republic to step in to provide resources and a morale boost.
“We’ve tried to help the clerks by giving them training and media outreach,” Vaudreuil said. “They took their jobs to collect your taxes, to count the votes, to be clerks. And suddenly they’re on the firing line, being accused of fixing elections or not counting the votes. So we want to back them up, accept the true facts, and show respect for the people who run the process.”
Other voter suppression attempts from Trump allies
While Trump is not getting wide acceptance by fellow Republicans for his call to seize control of elections, there are other GOP initiatives that have the potential to suppress votes.
US Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Janesville) has introduced a new series of proposals that would needlessly require further proof of US citizenship, ban mail-only elections, and place sharp restrictions on a person’s ability to collect ballots on behalf of other people like the elderly and disabled.
House Republicans passed a similar Voter ID measure last year called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
“That didn’t get a vote in the Senate,” Vaudreuil said. “What it does, frankly, is duplicate a law that already exists in Wisconsin and many if not most states.”
The best path forward, according to Vaudreuil, is to defend a system that’s working as it should.
“Support the local system that is based on our constitution,” he said. “It isn’t based on what President Trump says or what he wants — or what his minions might say, or what they might want. This is our Constitution, our law, and our clerks.”
