Boxes of ballots wait to be counted at Milwaukee's central count on Election Day 2024. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

A bipartisan group of former elected officials from Wisconsin on Monday criticized President Donald Trump’s promise to end mail-in voting and the use of electronic voting machines. 

In a Monday morning post on his social media site Truth Social, Trump said that he’d issue an executive order to end the practices ahead of next year’s midterm elections. 

“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES,” Trump wrote.

Neither the president nor the federal government has the authority to manage election administration in this way. The law gives individual states broad power to decide how to run their own elections. 

Wisconsin’s election system is the most decentralized in the country, giving much of the authority over how to conduct voting to the state’s 1,850 municipal clerks. The state allows mail-in absentee voting without requiring voters to provide a reason, and the electronic voting machines approved for use in the state are incapable of connecting to the internet. Electronic voting machines are more accurate at tallying votes than a human hand counting them. 

After Trump’s post, the Democracy Defense Project-Wisconsin board, which includes former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, former Attorney General JB Van Hollen, former U.S. Representative Scott Klug, and former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate, said in a statement that such an action would increase inaccuracy in the state’s elections. 

“The Constitution is clear: the federal government does not administer elections at the state level,” the group said. “In fact, improved access to voting methods, including the electronic machines Wisconsin uses that produce paper ballots and are unable to be connected to the internet, have benefitted Republicans just as much as Democrats. Wisconsin has displayed time and time again that our elections are safe and secure, and while we can always make them more efficient, there is no tolerance for inaccuracy in our results.”