RNC Backs Complaints Alleging Illegal Election Inspector Gaps in Wisconsin’s Biggest Cities

Stickers are passed out to residents who vote in the state's primary election in Green Bay, Wis., on April 2, 2024. Scott Olson/Getty Images

As part of a growing wave of election integrity challenges, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has supported two formal complaints with the Wisconsin Elections Commission over election integrity concerns in the state’s two largest cities—Madison, the state’s capital, and Milwaukee, its lakefront metropolis.

More specifically, the Republican parties in Dane County and Milwaukee County accuse election officials in the heavily Democratic jurisdictions of violating state law by not scheduling the vast majority of Republican election inspectors submitted for the state’s primary, which was held on April 2.

“Wisconsin election officials defied state law by refusing to hire a fair number of Republican election inspectors, despite having hundreds of Republican nominees available,” Michael Whatley, the head of the RNC, said in a statement on the complaints.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the Wisconsin Elections Commission and election officials in Milwaukee for comment. As of the evening of April 10, no responses to the complaints were visible on the Madison City Clerk’s website or that of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission.

On April 11, the city attorney for Madison, Michael Haas, told The Epoch Times that the complaint aimed at his city “contains significant misstatements of the facts.”

“If the Elections Commission requests a response, the City will provide documentation to show what actually happened. All proper procedures were followed in appointing election inspectors and many individuals nominated by the Republican Party did not complete required paperwork to be hired or respond to communications from the Clerk’s Office regarding their availability,” added Mr. Haas, who came under fire from Republicans in the state when he was WEC’s interim administrator.

According to the Madison complaint, officials contacted just 51 inspectors out of many names nominated by the Dane County Republican Party. On the day of the primary, the 51 Republican poll workers in Madison were apparently outnumbered by 60 Democrats.

The complainant, John Barnes, says he was among the electors appointed by the Madison Common Council in December 2023. Meeting minutes and a resolution from that body support the assertion he was on that list, though the resolution lists his application as “pending.”

“Despite being qualified, nominated, and appointed, Complainant Barnes was never contacted by Respondents to serve as an election inspector in the City of Madison at any polling location for the April 2, 2024 election,” the complaint asserts.

“Maribeth Witzel-Behl is refusing to contact and/or schedule Republican Party election inspectors … and has arbitrarily denied them the ability to serve as election inspectors in the City of Madison on April 2, 2024,” it states.

Bascom Hall on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, Wis., on Oct. 12, 2013. Mike McGinnis/Getty Images

The partisan poll worker gap was allegedly even bigger in Milwaukee.

The RNC and the Milwaukee County Republican Party claim that just 49 out of numerous Republican election inspector nominees were contacted by local election officials for the April 2 primary. Those 49 representatives of the GOP stacked up against 215 Democratic election inspectors, according to the RNC.

The Milwaukee complainant, Charles Hanna, also passed muster with local officials—in his case, the Milwaukee Board of Elections. Meeting minutes and a resolution listing his name among Republican electors, reviewed by The Epoch Times, appear to support that claim.

Yet, he too claims he wasn’t contacted to be an election inspector by city officials ahead of this month’s primary election in the state.

“This is the kind of misconduct that drives down faith in elections. The Republican Party is filing these complaints to compel election officials to follow the law and guarantee bipartisan access to important election administration positions in the Badger State,” Mr. Whatley said.

The actions in Wisconsin are part of a pattern of litigiousness in the RNC, now led by a faction aligned with former President Donald J. Trump after the ouster of former RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel.

Last month, the RNC joined a lawsuit against Michigan’s secretary of state over absentee ballot instructions—the second of multiple lawsuits against her. It also recently sued the Nevada Secretary of State over the management of voter rolls.