Wisconsin 2024: Vote Counting and Election Certification Processes
Wisconsin’s election processes are firmly grounded in state statute. The Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) — the state’s election oversight body — provides manuals, guidance, and advisory opinions governing all aspects of the election administration process. And Wisconsin also has protections in place to safeguard against canvassing and certification processes from election officials seeking to undermine or delay election results by refusing to carry out canvassing and certification processes. The Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) provides manuals, guidance, and advisory opinions governing all aspects of the election administration process. And Wisconsin also has protections to safeguard canvassing and certification processes from those seeking to undermine or delay election results. Wisconsin law has several built-in provisions to safeguard the process if an election official refuses to canvass and certify election results.
Our report provides a comprehensive view of the vote counting and certification processes in Wisconsin. Our analysis is intended to build confidence in our election system; in shining a light on potential vulnerabilities, we hope to help pro-democracy advocates and partners monitor post-vote processes and protect the fairness of elections in the state.
In this report you will find:
Details about each step in the post-vote process, including tabulation, canvassing, and certification.
An expected timeline for post-vote processes like tabulation and certification. You can also subscribe to a Google Calendar of these key dates here.
A library cataloging 210 Wisconsin election officials — County Clerks and members of County Boards of Canvassers. Our research identified 15 officials in 15 counties (7%) who had concerning anti-democracy findings. We were encouraged to see there were several Wisconsin County Clerks across the political spectrum who were defending the fairness of elections in the state. See the full analysis here.
An overview of potential vulnerabilities that could pose a risk to the counting and certification process. This includes the politicization of election administration, recently passed restrictions on election administration, hand-counting ballots in small jurisdictions, and other election conspiracy-driven vulnerabilities.
For a high-level summary of this report, please see our one-pager here.