GOP ought to be encouraging folks to serve as poll workers, not observers | Opinion
When former President Donald Trump was in Wisconsin last week he made headlines for “not committing to accept Wisconsin election results if he loses” in November.
“If everything's honest, I'd gladly accept the results. "If it's not, you have to fight for the right of the country…But if everything's honest, which we anticipate it will be — a lot of changes have been made over the last few years — but if everything's honest, I will absolutely accept the results," Trump said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel.
There have been a lot of attempts to prove that the election in 2020 was dishonest to no avail. Between recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, court rulings, a nonpartisan state audit, even the conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute of Law & Liberty conducted a study that found no widespread fraud.
Trump campaign recruits volunteers to monitor elections
But let’s forget about that for a moment and explore what the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign think will make the election honest this time: recruiting and training tens of thousands of volunteers to monitor and challenge voting processes in swing states. According to RNC officials, these volunteers will ensure that election officials follow the rules and will take them to court if they don’t follow rules.
In May the WisGOP has seven “Election Integrity” Workshops via Voom scheduled and at least one in June. The event is described as “comprehensive overview of the state’s electoral process, as well as guidance on how Poll Watchers can play an important role in upholding election integrity. You will learn how to observe and report any potential problems that may arise during the voting and tabulation process.”
Which is absolutely fine.
Election observers are just people who have signed up to watch the voting process and have rights under state law. The Democratic party also monitors election issues. The league of Women Voters of Wisconsin has run Election Observation Programs in the past. The only current debate over election observers at the Wisconsin Election Commission is how close they can stand to voters and what power election officials have to remove disruptive observers.
But there’s something about the advertisement of this recruitment effort that feels analogous to when a parent gives a child a “really important” task, that’s a “huge help,” when in reality the parent is just trying to keep their kid occupied and quiet for ten minutes.
Why not train to be poll workers and get paid for work?
Because a much more helpful way to ensure we have an honest election this fall would be to recruit tens of thousands of people to be poll workers. Poll workers are frontline election workers, interacting with voters, registering people to vote, checking photo IDs and processing absentee ballots. And they aren’t even volunteers, they get paid for their time!
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I’m not arguing that poll watchers don’t play a role in our elections. But tell people the truth about how boring what they are signing up for actually is instead of convincing them that “they are the reason this election will be honest this time.”
If you’re interested in becoming poll workers, you can find your municipal clerk’s contact information here: ?? https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/Become-PollWorker
Kristin Brey is the "My Take" columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Trump won't commit to accepting Wisconsin election results