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Dane County Clerk proposes more thorough post-election auditing instead of overhauling voter registration laws.

The Dane County Clerk said a court ruling ordering the state to verify the U.S. citizenship of all Wisconsin voters conflicts with current state election law.

On Friday, a Waukesha County judge ruled in favor of a Pewaukee resident who claims the state is violating their rights by not verifying the citizenship of millions of registered voters in Wisconsin.

The ruling would have the state Department of Transportation assist the verification process by comparing its citizenship information with voter rolls. The judge later stayed part of the ruling, meaning for the moment, people in Wisconsin can still register to vote.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” that the process would be incompatible with same-day voter registration in Wisconsin.

“Because we have that, we have never synced up those databases,” McDonell said. “It would be a huge multiyear project to rebuild the whole system.”

McDonell talked with host Kate Archer Kent about what citizenship checks are currently in place in Wisconsin and how the ruling might affect the work of Wisconsin elections officials.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Kate Archer Kent: How do election clerks currently verify whether someone is eligible to vote?

Scott McDonell: On the application, the first box you check says, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” And if you can’t check that box, you can’t register to vote. When you sign that form, it says you could be subject to fine or imprisonment under state and federal laws. So one of the main checks on this situation is the threat of a felony.

Also, you have to show an ID to vote. Wisconsin does not issue driver’s licenses or IDs to folks who are not here legally. They used to a long time ago and they don’t now. So that’s another check on this system.

And the voter database is public to anyone. Anyone can download it and check those names. The federal government could do that. They could download this and check to see if folks are here legally.

That’s why you haven’t really seen this as an issue, because this is pretty transparent, and it would be very obvious if someone were voting who shouldn’t be voting. That’s not just people who are not here legally. It’s 17-year-olds and people who have felonies, too.

KAK: How likely is it for non-citizens to vote in Wisconsin elections?

SM: No study has shown that this happens in any number, anywhere. And if you think about it, what you’re exposing yourself to is not only a felony — and people have been sent to prison for years over voting when they shouldn’t — but also deportation and all sorts of sanctions just for casting one ballot.

During the Scott Walker recall, all of those signatures were posted to the web, and people were going through it and saying, “Look, this person’s a teacher. This person’s a judge.” People are still doing that. They’re just not finding names to say, “Look, here’s an illegal voter. Let’s send it to the district attorney.”

KAK: What type of effort would it be for the Wisconsin Elections Commission to carry out a new verification system by the spring primary election in February?

SM: I don’t think it’s possible at all. One of the things you have to understand is that Wisconsin, Minnesota and a couple of other states were exempt from the original “motor-voter” law, which said you have to sync up your voter database with your driver’s license database so that people can register when they get their driver’s license or renew it.

But we have same-day voter registration. In Wisconsin, you can just walk in on Election Day and register to vote. Because we have that, we have never synced up those databases. Neither has Minnesota. It would be a huge multiyear project to rebuild the whole system.

KAK: How might this ruling affect election clerks on the ground as they do their work?

SM: I do think it is important that the judge stayed the part of his ruling that said people can still register to vote right now. You can’t disenfranchise people for something you can’t even prove is happening in any numbers. So for the short term, this won’t have an effect on us.

I struggle to see how this survives an appeal process to the state Supreme Court. States are allowed to have different laws. Some states have same-day voter registration. Others do not. Arizona tried to do this — checking for citizenship. They can do that if they pass a law. The Constitution delegates this to the states.
So I just don’t see how this survives the appeal process.

KAK: What are you watching for next as a clerk?

SM: I don’t think much is going to change. I never really understood why you don’t just audit these elections after the fact and say, “Let’s go through it.” I mean, if you have time, DOT could go through and see anybody who has been issued an ID. For example, you can get a driver’s license if you’re legally in the United States and you’re traveling, but there’s only a few thousand of those. You can check all of those records. There could be an after-election process that could be more thorough.

We could do that right now, you don’t need to change state law. You don’t need to have a court ruling. And I think it would instill confidence in the fact that our voter rolls are solid.