Last Sunday, in a rare disclosure of election irregularity, Ann Jacobs, Chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), made the rounds to political talk shows. In a political climate of mistrust of the integrity of Wisconsin’s elections, Jacobs seemed to be on a preemptive mission to keep the response to the election irregularity in Madison under control. Jacobs has been steadfastly resistant to voter concerns about the integrity of Wisconsin’s election systems and has shown no interest in correcting election irregularity: the serious, well-documented flaws that make Wisconsin’s elections vulnerable to cheating and unverifiable.
Appearing on Capital City Sunday broadcasting out of WKOW in Madison, Jacobs explained to host Darrielle Fair, pictured above, what happened and what the Commission is doing about it. On November 12 and December 3, just under 200 uncounted ballots were discovered in Madison. Maribeth Witzel-Behl, Madison City Clerk, chose not to report the uncounted ballots to the Commission until December 18, weeks after the Commission had certified the election on November 29. On December 26, Witzel-Behl issued a public statement disclosing the finding to the citizens of Madison and stressing the uncounted ballots would not have changed the outcome of any election. Jacobs told the viewing audience that the Commissioners unanimously used their authority to launch an immediate investigation. Don Millis, another Commissioner, said it was urgent that the Commission figure out if there was failure to follow procedures or if the procedures “aren’t good enough.”
Jacobs said the Commission will investigate “why the ballots weren’t included, what processes allowed this to happen, and how to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.” When asked by the host what the Commission response might be if procedures were not followed, Jacobs emphasized that the intent was remedial not punitive. She said if the Clerk didn’t follow procedures, she would be ordered not to do it again. Before this latest fiasco Maribeth Witzel-Behl already had a track record that should disqualify her for a City Clerk position. She is the Clerk who, during the COVID pandemic, presided over “Democracy in the Park” in Madison, an unlawful application of early in-person voting. When questions were raised by members of the public about the legality of these early voting events, rather than pause for review, Witzel-Behl defiantly and quickly merged those ballots with other ballots cast legally, preventing disqualifying any ballots determined to be illegal. There was no penalty for her “in your face” response. She is also the Clerk who allowed a full-time employee of her office, Bonnie Chang (featured in the January 5 Blast) to defraud the Madison taxpayers by working as a key member of the Madison staff while simultaneously working full time in Milwaukee as the Deputy Director of the Election Commission. Chang collected two full time paychecks and claimed residency in both Milwaukee and Madison for most of 2024. After the fraud was exposed, Chang was welcomed back to her position by Witzel-Behl.
The Wisconsin election system is riddled with serious flaws that make our elections unverifiable, yet program host Fair had no probing questions about election irregularity to ask. She was content to keep her focus narrow and provide Ann Jacobs the venue she was seeking to reassure the public that all is well with Wisconsin elections. It is likely the softball interview did not sit well with many voters across the state who have been fighting for the changes that will secure Wisconsin’s elections from cheating.
The after program “smack down” that came next was right out of the liberal playbook of members of the media who don’t do their jobs. One Wisconsin voter immediately reached out to challenge Darrielle Fair for neglecting to seriously investigate. He asked, “why reporters aren’t more interested in asking more important questions.” He made the case that investigating 200 uncounted votes in Madison was insignificant when compared with the real priorities for investigation such as the outrageous claim of nearly 90% voter turnout in Milwaukee County in the general election (20 points higher than the national average in the 50 largest cities) and the potential source of fraud created by thousands of driver’s licenses issued to noncitizens. The viewer’s conclusion: “When reporters don’t dig deeper, confidence in reporters goes away. Because you didn’t ask the important questions, my takeaway from this interview was that it was untrue. Perhaps it’s a smokescreen to deceive watchers into thinking the WEC is ‘on it’ when it’s really facilitating voter fraud or just incompetent.”
Fair immediately fired back with one of the favorite liberal go to positions: racism. “There is no proof/evidence whatsoever of widespread voter fraud in this state although your very present bias and belief system wants that to be the case. I understand that Milwaukee is the city with the largest minority population size in this state, but I can assure you that has no bearing, nor does it make a 90% voter turnout rate unbelievable…as I am sure your bias would also like to create the fallacy that non-eligible voters are fraudulently casting their ballots in state elections, once again, you lack any sort of evidence to back your claims.” “I will ignore your false claims on my journalistic integrity as I understand the purpose of this email…”
Nearly every week new evidence fuels the determination of a growing army of Wisconsin voters intent on correcting the flaws that make our election systems unverifiable. We are up against a legislature that has been unresponsive, a Wisconsin Elections Commission that is abetting voter fraud with faulty systems, and members of the media who act more as an arm of the Democratic party than champions of truth. We are rapidly approaching the April 1 election which will be as consequential for Wisconsin as the reelection of Donald Trump. Regaining a conservative majority in the Supreme Court with the election of Brad Schimel is on the line. There are 1,850 municipal clerks in the state who will be making decisions about local elections. While it is reasonable to assume most are diligent people working to ensure the will of the people prevails, there is no way to know how many Maribeth Witzel-Behls are out there. Spring elections are often decided by slim vote margins. There is no time to make the structural changes that are necessary or replace the unresponsive legislators and WEC Commissioners before April 1. Once again we are challenged to make the spring election too big to rig with massive voter turnout.
Throughout 2025 it will be critical to intensify and accelerate the election integrity movement and reject the continuous attempts to flip responsibility onto the voters. It is not the responsibility of the voters to prove voter fraud. It is the responsibility of the legislature to guarantee election systems are designed to make it possible to verify that every ballot cast is cast by an eligible voter. As we move forward, in the words of one Wisconsin voter, we have to dig a lot deeper.
