The roof of the Hotel Verdant in Downtown Racine is topped with a green roof planted with sedum and covered with solar panels. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

A Wisconsin Senate Committee held a public hearing Tuesday on a bill that would allow private companies to construct small solar projects on underutilized farmland and commercial rooftops across the state. 

The bill, which would encroach on the monopoly the state’s existing utility companies are allowed to maintain under state law, is being considered while people across the country worry about rising energy costs amid a boom in the construction of data centers and the increased use of electric vehicles and appliances. 

Environmental groups in the state have also regularly complained that the utility companies aren’t constructing enough renewable energy projects or sunsetting existing coal and natural gas power plants quickly enough. 

The bill, authored by Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) and Rep. Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa), would allow people in Wisconsin to subscribe to get some of their power from a local “community solar” installation. The subscribers would receive credits they can put toward their utility bill. Because the power developed at the local solar installation will still need to travel through the utility company’s infrastructure, the bill includes a provision that all subscribers to the program would have to pay at least $20 per month on their electric bill. 

In the hearing of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Local Government, the bill’s authors said allowing community solar projects would increase people’s energy choices while allowing the expansion of solar power in the state that avoids the objections from local residents that often come with large, utility-scale solar projects. 

“This change will open a new market sector in a high energy industry, attract economic investments in Wisconsin, create local jobs, drive innovation and competition, and ultimately save consumers and small businesses money on their energy bills,” Testin said. 

But the authors also acknowledged there is still a lot of disagreement over the details and the bill is not yet in its final form. 

“We’re not exactly there yet. We’re not all agreeing on this being the best way forward just yet, but this public hearing is a really important step to vet that out a little bit more to get us closer to that answer,” Krug said. “So yes, there are still some kinks to work out between the utilities and individuals who want a more market-based approach to solar. I hope we can work through those issues here.”

Over the hearing’s three and a half hours, the testimony split among two groups — the utility companies who are opposed to the bill and a coalition of solar companies, economists, farmers and employers who are in favor. 

The utility companies accused the bill of creating a “shell game” that would lower the costs for the subscribers of a given project while raising electric bills for everyone else. Zack Hill, testifying on behalf of Alliant Energy, said the utility estimated that community solar would result in an additional $8.75 billion in costs for ratepayers over the next 25 years. 

“How does [the bill] pay for subscribers 10 to 20% energy savings? The short answer: It will shift costs to your other constituents,” Hill said. “Some have said this sounds like community solar voodoo economics, but all you have to remember is this, when a company promises you a discount, someone else has to pay for it.”

People in favor of the bill argued that the generation of more energy could only help lower energy costs while disputing the utility companies’ claims. Will Flanders, the research director at the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, also said the utilities’ estimates undervalue the benefits that community solar can add. 

“This is a model that expands energy choice without large subsidies, without mandates, without turning more power over to monopoly utilities,” Flanders said. “In fact, it introduces competition at a time when Wisconsin needs it the most.” 

“We argue that community solar can deliver net savings to the entire system,” he continued. “When we talk about a shell game, what we’re really saying is there’s no real additional resources being put into the system, but obviously there is additional resources being put in when we have these with these programs in place.” 

Karl Rabago, a Denver-based energy consultant who testified with Flanders, said that the Alliant $8.75 billion estimate amounted to a threat that if the utilities don’t get to sell the energy, they’ll charge consumers for that loss. 

“No one knows where this number comes from, but having seen how utilities make their case in other states, I am 99.9% confident they are basically saying, ‘If we don’t get to make the electricity and sell it, we could potentially lose $8.75 billion and and if we don’t make that money, we’re going to charge you for it anyway,’ and that’s how customer costs could go up,” Rabago said. “That’s the most likely explanation for a histrionic number. The utility position, to summarize, seems to sound a bit like ‘let us do it all and no one gets hurt.’ We’ve heard those kinds of exhortations. Monopolies do it particularly well.” 

Toward the end of the hearing, a number of Wisconsin property owners testified, touting the benefits they’ll receive if they’re able to allow solar projects to be constructed on their land. 

Duane Hinchley, a Cambridge dairy farmer, said community solar is an “innovative solution” that can give farmers a stable income to hedge against the risks in the agriculture business. Plus, he said, allowing farmers to participate will prevent land that has been farmed for generations from being developed into subdivisions. 

“With the right policies in place, our state’s proud agricultural heritage can be a cornerstone of Wisconsin’s clean energy future,” Hinchley said. 

But throughout the day, lawmakers from both parties appeared skeptical of the bill’s benefits. 

Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) said repeatedly he didn’t understand how the program would work for the utility companies. 

“It sounds like a shell game to me,” he said. “I just, I’m really having a challenge with trying to figure out how that would work, because it would seem to me that the energy company, the regulated company, is the one that’s going to be footing the bill for this.” 

Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) questioned how the program wouldn’t eventually raise energy costs for non-participants, but said one selling point for the bill was that it would encourage the increased development of renewable energy. 

“I heard you say this is going to force more solar to be built, whether or not you need it,” Spreitzer said to a utility company representative. “And I guess that, to me, is the one selling point of the bill. Is that I look at where we’ve been in the landscape lately, where we have, unfortunately, federal incentives for solar that are going away. We have increasing demand for power from data centers. We’re seeing new natural gas plants get built. We’re seeing coal plants not being retired, when we hoped they would. To me, there’s plenty of need for solar.” 

If the utility companies won’t support a community solar proposal, Spreitzer wondered, what do they need from the Legislature to encourage more solar development? 

“And so if we’re not going to go down this route, what are the incentives that you all need to make sure that we can continue to drive solar development without increasing rates for customers and without saying, ‘let’s go build a natural gas plant instead?” he asked. 

Anti-rights of nature bill 

Also on Tuesday, the committee heard testimony on a bill from Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) that would prohibit local governments in Wisconsin from enacting “rights of nature” ordinances, which grant natural elements legal rights that can be protected in court. 

Nass said in his testimony that the idea is anti-American and is contrary to the values of the U.S. Constitution.

“This is a radical departure from our current law. Rights are something that human beings have,” Nass said. “This concept of granting nature rights is something that has been done primarily in foreign countries … and many of these countries lean dramatically towards socialism and communism, and their attitude is not compatible with private property rights in our country.”

But proponents of rights of nature resolutions frequently point to the fact that corporations are granted rights under U.S. law. Communities including Green Bay and Milwaukee have passed or begun drafting rights of nature ordinances and some Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would grant Devil’s Lake State Park some rights that can be protected in court. 

In a statement after the hearing, Rep. Vincent Miresse (D-Stevens Point), one of the co-authors of the Democratic proposal, wrote, “As we heard from advocates today, Rights of Nature is one of the strongest tools local governments have to protect clean air, clean water and healthy soil for future generations — so that our grandchildren, and their children after them, can drink our waters, eat food grown in our soils, and hunt in our forests.”

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Reading Time: 4 minutes

A Republican lawmaker’s plan to regulate drop boxes and give Wisconsin’s clerks more time to process absentee ballots ran into obstacles last week, including skepticism from fellow Republicans and a rival GOP bill to ban drop boxes entirely. 

The cool reception for Rep. Scott Krug’s ideas, especially to let clerks process ballots on the Monday before an election, underscores the GOP’s persistent internal divide over election policy in Wisconsin, with advocates of reforms long sought by election officials of both parties running into distrust fueled by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Last week, the resistance appeared strong enough to stall or complicate efforts by Republicans who aim to address clerks’ needs and craft workable policy that can gain Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ support.

That split was on full display at a Nov. 4 hearing of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, chaired by Rep. Dave Maxey, R-New Berlin.

Krug, a former committee chair who championed the draft bill to regulate drop boxes, argued that his colleagues should adopt a “reality-based” mindset with their approach to drop boxes. Liberals, he said, control the governor’s office, making it all but certain that GOP Rep. Lindee Brill’s bill to ban drop boxes would get vetoed by Evers. 

To that, Brill responded: “I am a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ, so do I think there’s a chance that (Evers) would change his mind and sign this into law? Sure. But I’m taking this on because our Republican president believes this is the direction we should be heading.”

In response to questions, she dismissed an Associated Press survey of election officials that found no widespread fraud from drop boxes in the 2020 presidential election that could have affected the results, saying she wasn’t sure she considered the AP a valid source. 

“You and I find truth in different spots,” she told a Democratic lawmaker.

During the hearing, Maxey let others speak at length, including Peter Bernegger — a conspiracy theorist fined by the Wisconsin Elections Commission for making frivolous complaints — who echoed unfounded claims of widespread drop box fraud in Wisconsin.

When Krug scrutinized Brill’s proposal, though, Maxey interrupted him, leading a visibly frustrated Krug to ask him to “give me the last sentence, like we’ve let others have.”

Republicans have slim majority, divided caucus

This clash between the two views on election policy “is long-standing and is not going to be resolved anytime soon,” said Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor and founder of the Elections Research Center. “Right now, it seems like neither path is really working.”

Assembly Republican leaders typically only advance bills that have 50 GOP votes, enough to pass without Democratic support. They once held 64 of 99 seats, nearly a supermajority, but now have just 54, meaning they can afford to lose only four GOP votes to advance legislation. That math and the internal distrust make passing even modest reforms difficult. Unless they can rally the more skeptical voices in their caucus, Burden said, Republicans have to be willing to cross the aisle and court Democratic votes. 

Maxey, who co-authored Brill’s bill, told Votebeat that drop boxes “are about as effective for election integrity as a mask is at preventing COVID,” an analogy that left his meaning muddled: Drop boxes in Wisconsin have never been proven to be a means for widespread fraud, whereas masks have been shown to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Maxey said his worries weren’t “wild conspiracy theories” but came from past ballot issues in Madison, though none of those involved drop boxes. He told Votebeat that he fears tampering and that voters using drop boxes might be unable to fix ballot errors.

Burden noted that valid ballots deposited in drop boxes are like any other absentee ballot and contain voters’ and witnesses’ information, which helps prevent fraud.

Monday processing proposal in doubt

Krug’s draft proposal to let local clerks begin processing absentee ballots on the Monday before an election was a change long sought by election officials to help speed up the reporting of results, but blocked by a few conservative lawmakers. Krug and other GOP leaders hoped his proposal could win them over because it was part of a broader package that included measures conservatives want, including an explicit ban on clerks fixing, or curing, errors on absentee ballot envelopes, and the stricter regulation of drop boxes.

But at a hearing on Nov. 6, Krug conceded that both the preprocessing and drop box proposals were in jeopardy because of GOP opposition. Those measures were stripped out of the package after pushback from Brill, Maxey and other conservatives, who released their own bill to ban drop boxes entirely.

Maxey told Votebeat that he would likely give a Monday processing proposal a hearing in his committee but would vote against it — adding that he knows other Assembly Republicans are against it, too. 

Krug — who previously told Votebeat that he “would use every little ounce of political capital effort created on elections to get Monday processing done” — appeared to downplay the measure’s importance, saying it was only an issue in Milwaukee, where late-night reporting of election results often leads to conspiracy theories about fraudulent ballot dumps. 

Clerks elsewhere disagree that the problem is so localized. Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood, a Republican, told Votebeat she hopes Krug “hasn’t entirely given up” on the Monday processing proposal, though “that’s what it sounds like for this session, at least.”

Krug also blamed its failure so far on the governor’s office, which he said received the draft Monday processing proposal months ago but never got back to him.

“Scott Krug has taken enough you-know-what in every community in the state of Wisconsin for being bold on this issue and saying we have to do it,” Krug said. “I need partners.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Wisconsin election reforms sought by clerks are stalled by GOP infighting is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

On a quiet Friday at Mo’s Bar, a lakeside dive where regulars gossip over beer and fried perch, Rep. Scott Krug blended in easily. 

He nursed a Miller Lite and gestured out the window toward Big Roche a Cri, one of the lakes that he said had taught him everything he needed to know about surviving the Capitol’s sharpest fights.

“I was the water guy in the Legislature for years and years,” said Krug, an eight-term Republican who represents a region of farms, lakes and rivers stretching south and west from Wisconsin Rapids. Instead of sticking to the party line, he said, he tried to balance the interests of farmers, the tourism industry and clean water — ultimately winning support from both conservation and agricultural groups.

“I don’t give a shit about getting my head kicked in by both sides,” Krug said. 

That willingness to buck party orthodoxy has mattered even more in recent years amid Wisconsin’s fierce battles over election administration. As many Republicans leaned into Donald Trump’s false claims about fraud, and the Assembly’s elections committee became a stage for conspiracy theories, Krug carved out a different role: the pragmatist trying to keep the system running.

He took over as chair of the committee in late 2022 after his predecessor’s hard-line tactics cost her influence. This session, Krug has moved up to assistant majority leader, a role that puts him at the center of GOP caucus strategy. That might mean winnowing 18 election ideas down to five bills, huddling with Wisconsin Elections Commission appointees, talking with clerks across the state, or working the halls to find a path for bipartisan proposals long stuck in gridlock.

It has been hard for Krug to overcome the conspiracy theories embraced by a small GOP faction and rally his colleagues behind his proposed election reforms. When Republicans do unite on election policy, their bills usually face Democratic opposition and a veto from Gov. Tony Evers.

Still, Krug has kept pushing for the policies that clerks have long asked for, like allowing absentee ballots to be processed the day before an election. 

He said he measures his success not only on whether he can get his proposals enacted, but also on whether he can change the tone of the debate, increase confidence in elections and cool the conspiracy talk on the elections committee and in his party, even as Trump and his allies help fuel it. 

“Messaging,” he said, “has become more important than actual policy.”

The era Krug replaced

Krug took over the election committee from Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Trump loyalist who regularly invited conspiracy theorists to testify. Groups like True the Vote and people like Peter Bernegger, a prolific election litigant, used the committee’s platform to veer into unsubstantiated accusations of malfeasance or outright fraud by election officials.

Brandtjen also routinely exceeded her authority as chair, issuing invalid subpoenas to counties and other election offices. 

Brandtjen also embraced former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman’s partisan review of the 2020 election, which floated the idea of an unconstitutional decertification of the election, threatened to jail mayors and ultimately cost taxpayers more than $2 million. 

While Trump praised Brandtjen’s loyalty, her standing within her own caucus weakened. Assembly Republicans voted to bar her from closed caucus meetings in 2022, writing to her that past issues “led our caucus to lose trust in you.” Brandtjen dismissed the note as “petty.”

Krug saw an opportunity to restore order and told Assembly Speaker Robin Vos: “Give me the election committee,” he recalled. Vos handed him the gavel that December.

The tone changes, while legislation stalls

The tone shifted immediately. 

In one of the committee’s first sessions, Krug held public hearings on bipartisan bills to limit polling place closures and compensate local governments for holding special elections. In the next session, he held a hearing on another bipartisan bill to increase penalties for harming election officials. 

He didn’t shy away from giving space to Republican-backed priorities either — including a bill to specially mark noncitizens’ IDs as not valid for voting, and an informational hearing to investigate whether noncitizens were on the state’s voter rolls. The first was vetoed by Evers, and the second didn’t go far after the Department of Transportation declined to turn over the necessary data. (Krug told Votebeat he thought the number was minuscule but still wanted the department to share its data.)

Still, for clerks and legislators across the state, Krug has been a welcome change.  

Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, who has been advocating for clerks in the Legislature for about eight years, told Votebeat that Krug was the best chair she’s worked with so far. “He wants to understand the system the most,” she said.

Rep. Lisa Subeck, a Madison Democrat and former member of the election committee, said Krug brought a civility back to the committee that had disappeared after the 2020 election. She also praised some of his ideas, though she questioned the effectiveness of his advocacy, noting many proposals he supported never got Assembly approval. 

Krug said a lot of the obstacles come from the state Senate, which blocked the Monday processing bill last year. The Senate, he said, has more “further-outs” on elections. 

Kim Trueblood, the Republican county clerk in Marathon County, called Krug’s leadership “refreshing” but said she doesn’t know what to do to convince some GOP senators “that the bogeyman under the bed is not real.”

Krug said he’ll keep trying, and his record suggests he won’t shy away from intraparty disagreements. 

He tried to calm down the rhetoric after 2024 U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde delayed conceding for two weeks, blaming his loss in part on “improbable” absentee ballot totals in Milwaukee. Krug recalled Hovde raising the issue again in a phone call during this year’s Supreme Court election. Krug, who was observing Milwaukee’s absentee ballot counting facility, said he told Hovde: “I’m telling you, it’s not the issue here.”

Hovde said he couldn’t recall the exchange. He told Votebeat that while he does not blame his loss on central count, his skepticism of the process remains.

Other states, meanwhile, are still battling the ghosts of 2020 in their legislative committees. In neighboring Michigan, Republicans rebranded their House’s Elections Committee into the Election Integrity Committee and placed it in the hands of a legislator who believes the 2020 election was stolen, regularly inviting the type of firebrands Brandtjen once welcomed. In Georgia and Arizona, hearings on election-related legislation regularly erupt into partisan shouting matches.

Vos, the Assembly speaker, said Krug has treated election concerns as “a problem to be solved,” rather than “milked.” He praised Krug for being practical with legislation rather than holding out until he found perfection.

“I think he’s really done a good job of bringing people together,” Vos continued. “He’s been an incredible leader to try to showcase that it doesn’t have to always be partisan.”

Walking the GOP tightrope on election policy

Krug stepped down as committee chair this session, shifting to vice chair and taking on a new role as the Assembly’s assistant majority leader, where he’ll help rally Republican votes. He said he hopes to bring the same spirit of compromise to his leadership role. 

The new role means he can write his own bills for the election committee, which he was unable to do last session, as committee chairs generally are not allowed to preside over their own legislation.

Krug said one of his biggest hurdles this session is dealing with election conspiracy theorists — a faction he argues has lost influence in Wisconsin but remains disruptive.

The tougher challenge, he added, will continue to come from Washington. Trump and his allies have called for banning mail voting, overhauling voting machine standards, requiring proof of citizenship to vote, and using the Department of Justice to scrutinize the Wisconsin Elections Commission. 

Krug has tried to give where he can, incorporating some provisions of a Trump executive order on elections into draft legislation. 

But his tone changed when Trump posted on social media that he wanted to ban mail-in voting and criticized voting machines. “My whole goal is to get results quicker,” he said, “not to go back to hand-counting and wait for results until the Friday after the election.”

Usually, when his constituents or other Assembly members come to him espousing these ideas, he can calm them down with “truth and data,” a strategy he says works until another press release comes from the Trump administration.

“And that’s our struggle,” he said. “You see this ebb and flow, and it’s all based on what comes out of Washington. So we put the fire out. He stokes it, then I put the fire out, he stokes it.”

Krug, a real estate agent, parent of six, and grandparent, said he’ll stay busy even if his tactics make him politically unpopular. If his constituents force him out for telling the truth, he said, he’ll just go sell more houses — and keep adding to his bobblehead collection, a running competition with Evers. 

Krug sees promising signs in his party

At Mo’s Bar, where workers and patrons greet him like a neighbor, it’s clear his independence hasn’t yet cost him local support. Despite the headwinds, he insists the atmosphere around elections has changed.

“I feel it when I talk to everybody,” he said. “It used to be my first conversation when I walked in here: ‘What are you gonna do about the goddamn election?’ It’s over. People don’t do that.” 

Buoyed by that shift, Krug is scheduled to introduce several election-related bills on Wednesday, telling Votebeat he expects most to win bipartisan support. The measures would let clerks process ballots the day before an election, add new auditing requirements, regulate the use of drop boxes, and repeal a law critics say puts ballot privacy at risk.

He also sees promising signs of improvement from within his own party. 

In April — when Hovde and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson were still criticizing Milwaukee’s election operation — losing Republican Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel conceded defeat without caveat or complaint. 

As some supporters booed him, Schimel said, “You’ve gotta accept the results.”

Krug said he hoped the concession would be a sign to other GOP candidates that the “shine has worn off” of holding radical election positions.

“I’ll never find a way to fix it entirely,” he said, but he has to keep at it because the effort will shape how Wisconsinites view the Legislature on all other issues. 

“Everything starts from elections,” he said.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

State Rep. Scott Krug emerges as GOP’s voice of pragmatism on Wisconsin election policy is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Wisconsin’s controversial practice of randomly removing ballots to resolve discrepancies between the number of ballots and the number of voters would be prohibited under new draft legislation that requires meticulous audits in every county.

The draft proposal, obtained by Votebeat from Republican Rep. Scott Krug, will be formally released this week. Krug said the proposed ban on removing random ballots, known as drawdowns, was inspired largely by a Votebeat investigation highlighting election officials’ reluctance to use the practice and questions about its constitutionality.

“That practice undermines public trust,” Krug said, calling drawdowns “outdated.”

Wisconsin’s law allowing drawdowns is almost as old as the state, and it appears to be used most often in recounts. Other states have had similar laws, but most have repealed them. 

Drawdowns occur when records show more ballots cast than the number of voters who cast ballots. These discrepancies usually stem from minor recordkeeping errors or process mistakes.

For example, if poll workers discover an absentee ballot envelope was improperly filled out but had already been separated from its ballot, the ballot still counts, leaving more ballots than valid voters. Because ballots are generally unidentifiable, the law would call for election officials to remove one ballot at random.

Multiple Wisconsin clerks have told Votebeat that they loathe the practice, and national election experts have been flabbergasted that it exists. 

A legislative study committee in 2005 questioned the practice’s constitutionality without resolving the issue. Courts have similarly scrutinized its use. The Wisconsin Elections Commission has said a drawdown should be reserved as a last resort “when you cannot explain why you have more ballots than voters.”

Sam Liebert, Wisconsin state director of the group All Voting Is Local and a former clerk, said he once had to conduct a drawdown. He called it “one of the most gut-wrenching things I think I’ve ever done.”

“Every one of those ballots — it’s an American citizen’s hopes and dreams of the candidate or candidates that they want to represent them,” he said.

Although drawdowns are rare and usually limited to recounts, they’ve drawn national attention.

When President Donald Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Wisconsin, his team invoked the law to seek a drawdown of 220,000 absentee ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties, calling the practice “the only legally available remedy” to account for what it alleged were unlawfully cast ballots. The Wisconsin Supreme Court narrowly rejected the effort.

Other states typically require officials to explain discrepancies rather than resolve them by discarding ballots. Krug’s legislation would require exactly that — for election officials to document the discrepancy and record the number and type of excess ballots.

Proposal would require risk-limiting audits

The bill also requires risk-limiting audits, a kind of post-election review designed to give statistical confidence that votes are accurately tallied.

In these audits, workers review a statistically significant sample of ballots that should mirror the vote totals. If the sample doesn’t align with official results within the allowed margin of error, officials review more ballots until it does. The number of selected ballots varies from election to election, depending on how close a race is and how many ballots were cast. 

The math behind risk-limiting audits is complex, but election experts and officials have long supported the practice. 

Jennifer Morrell, CEO of The Elections Group, a consulting firm, said she has long promoted risk-limiting audits because they can include more ballots than other reviews. They can be laborious in close races but less burdensome in lopsided ones.

Morrell said jurisdictions that have implemented risk-limiting audits have become better at accounting for their ballots and reconciling vote totals, knowing that any issues would become obvious during an audit.

Liebert, from All Voting is Local, called risk-limiting audits “an effective way to ensure a correct count and detect any statistical anomalies,” while boosting voter confidence.

Closer races require larger samples, and in very tight contests, such audits may require a full hand count. Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson said that could happen often, as races across the county tend to be quite close.

Krug’s proposal calls for county clerks to perform a risk-limiting audit for the contest garnering the most votes at each general or spring election before they certify the election results. It also calls for an additional audit of a random contest in those elections that the Wisconsin Elections Commission selects.

A pilot program would begin in 2026, with full implementation in 2027.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Wisconsin bill would repeal ‘outdated’ ballot drawdown law and require risk-limiting audits is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Wisconsin Republicans are reviving a plan to let poll workers process absentee ballots on the Monday before an election, a change long sought by election officials, but blocked by a small but influential group of conservative lawmakers. 

This time, the proposal is tied to measures conservatives want, including regulations for ballot drop boxes and an explicit ban on clerks fixing, or curing, errors on ballots. By bundling the measures together, GOP leaders hope to finally unite their party on a plan that would shorten the wait for election results, reduce the opportunity for election misinformation and avoid a veto by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. 

The proposal, which Votebeat obtained in draft form from Republican Rep. Scott Krug, is set to be publicly released next week. Krug, former chair of the Assembly Elections Committee and now assistant majority leader in the Assembly, said he “will use every little ounce of political capital effort I created on elections to get Monday processing done, because that’s 90% of our problem in the state: perception.”

Early processing of absentee ballots has had support from Democrats and many Republicans, but proposals to allow it have repeatedly stalled in the past due to concerns over whether Milwaukee, a Democratic stronghold that has been a target of election conspiracy theories in the past, could be trusted with the head start on processing ballots. 

Krug said he is “confident” that this measure will pass.

“I think the right-leaning voters of the state will appreciate that we’re codifying the court decision that (clerks) can’t cure ballots anymore,” said Krug. “I think the middle and the left-leaning people are going to be able to appreciate the Monday processing, and I think everybody’s going to be able to appreciate that there’s standards for drop boxes — they’re not going away.”

Evers’ team has said he would sign a Monday processing proposal that’s packaged with other measures, as long as they didn’t contain a “poison pill” or make voting harder.

Monday processing proposals have stalled in the past

Most states allow some early processing of absentee ballots, but in Wisconsin, local clerks in Wisconsin cannot begin until the morning of Election Day. That process includes verifying voters’ information, checking for complete witness information and running the ballots through a tabulator. This proposal would allow everything to begin on Monday, except tallying the results. 

In Milwaukee, where absentee ballots numbering between 50,000 and well over 100,000 in general elections are counted in a central location, counting often stretches into the early hours of Wednesday. As those ballots get tabulated in batches overnight, they can swing who is ahead in the vote tallies broadcast by the media, fueling false claims of fraudulent “ballot dumps.”

Democrats have long asked for a bill that includes only the Monday processing proposal, but Krug told Votebeat it’s unlikely that enough Republicans would get behind such a measure for it to pass. Evers himself has proposed “clean” versions of the Monday processing bill in past state budgets, but ran into Republican opposition. 

In 2023, the Assembly quickly approved a version of a Monday processing bill, only for it to stall in the Senate after Republican Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a former elections committee chair who has spread election conspiracy theories, testified against it.

“Why would we give bad actors an extra day to cheat?” Brandtjen said in a statement in 2022 criticizing the transparency of Milwaukee’s election operation. (Claims of widespread voter fraud have never been substantiated.)

What’s included in the current Monday processing proposal

The current proposal is similar to past versions and includes previously proposed measures to create a centralized database of Wisconsin residents deemed incompetent to vote and to eliminate an obsolete practice of counting absentee ballots. 

This version also proposes eliminating a law to record unique ID numbers on the back of absentee ballots at central counting facilities — a requirement that election workers say can risk ballot secrecy and creates needless work. It also includes a provision that would standardize witness address requirements on absentee ballot envelopes.

The proposal would require municipalities that count absentee ballots at a central location to begin processing them on Monday; it would allow municipalities that count them at polling places — such as Madison and the vast majority of other municipalities — to start on Monday, too, as long as they pass an ordinance allowing it.

An extra day to process ballots would allow election officials to work shorter shifts and get the job done more efficiently, said Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, a Democrat. 

It could also give election observers, some of whom are skeptical of the voting process, more opportunity to observe both ballot casting and counting, she said.

Tollefson said she was “hopeful” that the bill will finally cross the finish line this session.

“I really would like to have a large municipality have the option to use this, especially for your April and your November elections,” she said. “Those are really long days.” 

Why Monday processing could break through this year

Krug said the proposal is one of his top priorities this session. And enough elements might have lined up for it to finally head to the governor’s desk.

Krug’s new leadership role could help. As assistant majority leader, he brokers support within the GOP caucus, which can only afford four defections in the 99-seat Assembly. He said he’s been trading support for colleagues’ priorities to build votes for Monday processing. He also is no longer chair of the elections committee, freeing him to author bills and advance them directly.

Ballot drop boxes may prove to be a key bargaining chip. The conservative-led state Supreme Court banned them in 2022; the liberal-led court reinstated them in 2024 but left them unregulated in statute.

Krug said he helped work on a poll in April that found 76% of Wisconsinites support the Monday processing proposal and 80% support standardized rules for absentee ballot drop boxes.

He decided to put the provisions together, proposing requirements for drop boxes, including where to place them, how to secure them, how to collect ballots, and how to keep records of when they’re emptied. He also proposed a requirement for the drop box to be under a continuous, livestreamed video feed.

Some members of the Republican caucus, Krug said, still want to get rid of drop boxes entirely. So “we had to kind of beef up the requirements for drop boxes to meet their hurdle. We’re not allowing them, we’re codifying them.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

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Wisconsin has a new bill to allow early start to absentee ballot processing. Can it pass? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.