Here & Now

Scott McDonell on pressures election officials face in 2022

Frederica Freyberg:

Voting rules and guidance are still changing even this close to the November election. The latest change saw a court and then the Wisconsin Elections Commission this week dump guidance to clerks that they could fix the part of absentee ballot envelopes holding the witness signatures, curing such things as a zip code or spelling of a street name. Is that a big deal? We asked Dane County clerk Scott McDonell. Thanks very much for being here.

Scott McDonell:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So is it a big deal? What’s your reaction to dumping the guidance that clerks can cure absentee ballots in this way?

Scott McDonell:

Well, for the most part, it just means more work for the clerks. I think we saw that in the August election. Clerks are spending a lot of time trying to make sure that envelopes that weren’t complete were getting back to the voters so they could complete it and get it back again. You know, they did that work. There was only a handful of ballots that I saw that had been cured and so then when we — you know, 25 of them, I think, out of 130,000 in August in Dane County. But that was because clerks were working hard to make sure that they had gotten cured and you’re going to see even more of that in November, just because number of voters goes up.

Frederica Freyberg:

In your mind, did that kind of curing result in fraud?

Scott McDonell:

No, all of those — the curing was done by clerks after they could verify who that person was. They looked them up in the system. They could verify the address, the person. So you know, and all of that could have been traced back to show who it was, and the purpose of that address, for example, for the witness is so that law enforcement can interview them and say, “Is this the person who voted? Did you see them vote? Is there fraud?” So from our point of view, if you can show law enforcement who this person is and where to find them, that’s just the opposite, it prevents fraud.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you think that the new rules will discourage people from voting absentee or result in numbers of ballots being thrown out, or what do you think?

Scott McDonell:

You know, I just think it’s really on the margin, and I would say it’s evenly distributed around the state. I mean, generally these mistakes that we see often are an older couple living at home. They witness each other’s ballot, and that happens everywhere kind of evenly. So I don’t think it affects the election, and I don’t think there’s a lot of it, but it’s just frustrating from a clerk’s point of view, because we can see who these people are, and to disenfranchise them just seems wrong.

Frederica Freyberg:

What is it like this year, trying to ready for a major election?

Scott McDonell:

Well, in some ways, it’s the same old same old. I mean, we do this all the time. But I think the bigger difference is, you know, we’ve seen just our workload really go up. A lot of open records requests coming in. I can’t tell you how many I’ve gotten. And it’s true all over the state and all over the country, honestly. Also just trying to plan contingency-wise for things you haven’t had to worry about before: disruptions in the polling places, how are you going to make sure law enforcement and the clerk’s office are on the same page on how they’re going to respond to those things? Just a lot more workload than normal.

Frederica Freyberg:

So in terms of those open records requests, are these from people wanting to sleuth out fraud?

Scott McDonell:

Well, there’s a lot of different open records requests. The ones that I’ve gotten recently seem — the goal seems to be to prevent the destruction of materials from the 2020 election. So right now is when we would, after 22 months, destroy things like the ballots so that we make room for the ones coming in November, the envelopes, you know, poll books, things like that. So they tend to be a copy and paste that have gone all over the place saying, you know, you must retain these records. There may be a lawsuit, or this is an open records request, but then when you follow up with them, it’s a little harder to nail them down on what they want. They seem to be just trying to delay the normal cycle for us, and of course that creates its own challenges for clerks around the state.

Frederica Freyberg:

You spoke to contingency plans at polling places this year, like what?

Scott McDonell:

Well, we saw in Michigan, you know, there was trainings going on in some counties where they were urging poll watchers to bring cameras in and surreptitiously do things that are against the law. You really can’t record people voting in a polling place, for obvious reasons. And for some not so obvious reasons. There are people voting there who are confidential voters who are, you know, victims of domestic violence. So we just worry there may be people being disruptive in the polling place. That did not happen in August, so maybe it’s much to do about nothing, but you have to assume the worst, and hope for the best.

Frederica Freyberg:

You spoke this week about persistent misinformation around election administration. What does this do to people’s faith in the process?

Scott McDonell:

Well, the system doesn’t work if half the voters don’t think their ballots are being tallied correctly or the machines have been hacked. So I’m not sure what we can do about it. But democracy depends on both sides believing in the results.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right, well, we leave it there and we wish you luck, Scott McDonell. Thank you.

Scott McDonell:

Thanks for having me.