MADISON, Wis. – Government watchdog groups are calling into question the effectiveness of the newly formed Wisconsin Ethics Commission.
The new entity was created a year ago to replace the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.
In its first year of existence, the Ethics Commission investigated a single alleged violation of state campaign finance and lobbying laws.
In the year prior, the Government Accountability Board handled 39 investigations.
Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, says the new commission isn't doing a good job, in part because many of the state's once-strong ethics laws were repealed.
"Those were all repealed by the end of 2015,” he explains. “We now have one of the least regulated, most wide open 'Wild West' campaign finance and ethics systems in the country, rating somewhere below Alabama and Mississippi, and maybe just east of Texas."
The Republican legislative leadership, which spearheaded the repeal of most of the state's strong political ethics laws, says the former Government Accountability Board was used as an instrument for partisan witch hunts.
Heck and others strongly disagree, pointing out that the new Ethics Commission is the very embodiment of partisan politics.
"The administrator of the Ethics Commission is answerable to the legislative leadership,” he points out. “He's not answerable to the law.
“The nonpartisan judges who made up the Government Accountability Board did not have to answer to the legislative leadership, and in fact had a separate stream of funding to conduct investigations."
The now-defunct Government Accountability Board was composed of nine retired judges, who adhered to the law, not to the direction of legislative leadership.
Heck says the new Ethics Commission was designed to be a completely partisan instrument, and, unlike the former board, it cannot initiate investigations.
"In November of 2016, one of the judges that had been appointed to the new Ethics Commission quit in disgust,” Heck relates. “He said it was a partisan entity that did not adhere to the law, and that only adhered and listened to the partisan masters that made the appointments to the Commission."
Heck says, sarcastically, the Ethics Commission is operating “exactly as it was designed.”
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By Marilyn Odendahl for The Indiana Citizen.
Broadcast version by Joe Ulery for Indiana News Service reporting for the Indiana Citizen-Free Press Indiana-Public News Service Collaboration.
For St. Joseph County Circuit Court Clerk Amy Rolfes, the statistics only confirmed what she had been seeing and hearing from voters in the days and weeks leading into the Nov. 5 election.
Nearly 59,000 registered voters in the Northern Indiana county cast a ballot either by mail or by going to the polls before Election Day, topping the number of voters who visited the polls on Nov. 5 by more than 5,000.
However, Rolfes already knew early voting was popular by the public's reaction to St. Joseph County's third early-voting site that was opened this year for the first time. The new polling place was opened two weeks before the general election in Center Township's public library, located in the southern portion of the county.
The site was busy every single day it was operating, Rolfes said, and voters were thanking the staff giving them a convenient place to vote.
"Clearly the voters have spoken," Rolfes said. "They enjoy early voting."
The final vote tallies from the November election show the popularity of early voting was similar across the state to what Rolfes saw in St. Joseph County. According to data from the Indiana Secretary of State, 1.6 million eligible Hoosier voters - 54% of all who cast a ballot in the 2024 general election - voted either absentee or in person prior to Election Day. Comparatively, 1.87 million registered Indiana voters - 61% of those who voted - went to the polls early in the 2020 general election.
Despite the early voting numbers, Indiana's overall voter participation slipped this year. The secretary of state reported that 4.84 million Hoosiers were registered to vote in November, which is 86,085 more than were registered in November 2020. However 2.97 million, or 61%, voted in the 2024 general election, which is 94,349 fewer than the 3.07 million, or 65%, who voted four years ago.
Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, said she is disappointed that lawmakers are not doing more to improve the state's voter turnout numbers. Changes that would enable more Hoosiers to vote include same day voter registration, extending voting hours, and prohibiting candidates and their supporters from being any closer than, at least, 100 feet from the entrance of a polling site on Election Day.
"That's frustrating when clearly we have a big problem with turnout and zero problems in term of (election) security, yet our policymakers continue to make voting more restrictive in the name of making it more secure," Vaughn said. "We should be opening it up in the name of getting more people involved."
Demand continues for early voting
Like St. Joseph County, Clark County in Southern Indiana opened another early voting site for the November election.
Clark County Circuit Court Clerk Ryan Lynch said the second polling place, at the R.E.M.C. building along U.S. 60, was a more convenient option for voters in the middle and northern parts of the county. They did not have to travel to the courthouse in downtown Jeffersonville to vote.
Lynch said he believes the additional polling location motivated more people to vote early. Although the 22,522 voters in Clark County who voted either by mail or in-person before Election Day was down from the 28,666 who cast an early ballot in 2020, he does not expect interest in early voting to wither.
"I think we should definitely plan for big turnouts for early voting and put more resources into that to be prepared," Lynch said.
After the Marion County Election Board voted against extending early voting by two hours in the morning, Marion County Circuit Court Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell kept the polling site in the City County Building open until 10 p.m. the Saturday and Sunday before the Nov. 5 election. She said she added hours in the evening to make voting more convenient and had noticed that individuals who voted in the evening were wearing uniforms, indicating they were shift workers in hospitals, law enforcement agencies and private companies.
"It worked," Sweeney Bell said, but she did not commit to extending the hours in future elections.
In Marion County, 165,186, or 46% of registered voters, cast an absentee or early ballot in 2024. That was down from the 215,931, or 55% of registered voters, who voted before Election Day in 2020.
Not only were Hoosiers voting early this year, but they were, apparently, seeking answers to their voting questions sooner.
Ami Gandhi, director of strategic initiatives and the Midwest Voting Rights Program at the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, said during the early-voting period, more Indiana voters were calling the 866-OUR-VOTE election protection hotline the CLCCR established. Also, they were calling before the voter registration deadline passed and before absentee voting began.
"Across the board, we heard from voters in many different parts of the state who have an interest in expanded access to early voting, including voters who wanted more locations in their county (and) voters who were seeking expanded hours and who were shocked, and at times upset, by the relative early end time to early voting on any given day," Gandhi said.
A 'chilling impact,' low turnout
Wells and Whitely counties recorded the highest turnout rates in Indiana at 73% each in November. Marion and St. Joseph counties tallied the lowest turnout rates in the state at 55% each.
Sweeney Bell was disappointed by her county's low turnout. She said the first hour the polls were open on Election Day, about 40,000 people voted in Marion County; however, the rush of voters that usually comes between 4 and 6 p.m. never materialized.
"I'm baffled when people have such power and choose not the exercise it," Sweeney Bell said, adding that voting is essentially asking people who they want making the decisions that will affect every part of their lives. She said she is disappointed and not sure why people chose to stay home, rather than go vote.
"If I knew why, I could do something about it," Sweeney Bell said.
Rolfes tried to encourage voting in St. Joseph County by producing a couple of educational videos. She was allowed to use the local public television station's studio for an hour and half and she made four "super nerdy" videos, providing instruction on such things as voting by mail and using the voting machine to cast a ballot.
"Voting information is key to increasing voter turnout," Rolfes said.
Vaughn, of Common Cause Indiana, said she believes some new voters and naturalized citizens did not go to the polls this year because of the claim by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales about noncitizens voting in state elections. The two elected officials announced a few weeks before the Nov. 5 election, that they had asked the federal government to verify the citizenship status of 585,774 individuals on Indiana's voting rolls.
Calling the move by Rokita and Morales a "political stunt," Vaughn alleged the whole point of creating the list and the making announcement was to have a "chilling impact" to discourage people from voting. She said the election protection hotline did not get any calls from individuals who had their citizenship status challenged when they tried to vote, but some new voters did call the CLCCR hotline with concerns about causing trouble if they cast a ballot.
"How widespread that (was), I can't really say, but we, at least, heard from a few people and I've done this long enough to know when you get a few calls, there are many more people who didn't call," Vaughn said. "They just stayed home."
Intimidation incidents rising on Election Day
Along with Indiana voters asking for the location of their polling place and what they should do if the poll book does not have them listed as a registered voter, Gandhi said the election protection hotline also received calls about voter intimidation and aggressive electioneering at some polling places.
Reports of intimidation included Hamilton County, where a group of individuals were standing outside a polling place waving Make America Great Again flags and harassing voters, according to CLCCR and Vaughn.
Sweeney Bell said in Marion County, poll worker training was updated to include de-escalation techniques. The additional instruction was in response to the false rhetoric about insufficient election security and ineligible voting, she said.
"I have no worries about the security of the ballot," Sweeney Bell said. "I worry about the security of the poll workers."
That training appears to have helped defuse an incident at a Marion County polling place that is still being investigated and could result in criminal charges. According to Sweeney Bell and Vaughn, a man became belligerent and shouted profanities, after he was told he had to remove his Make America Great Again hat and turn his T-shirt, which identified a specific candidate, inside out. The man took off his shirt, revealing he was carrying two guns and a knife. The police were called and the poll workers were able to get the man through the voting process as quickly as possible so he left with harming anyone.
Sweeney Bell said a report detailing what happened is still being compiled. The Marion County Election Board is scheduled to meet Dec. 12, she said, and the members will talk about the incident.
"I don't think it's over," Sweeney Bell said.
In Clark County, Lynch said poll workers at one voting site were also able to defuse a situation on Election Day. Someone came to the polling place and wanted to sit and watch the machine that tabulates all the ballots. The workers at the site enlisted help from the clerk's office and the staff was able to mitigate the situation so the individual left and police did not have to be called, he said.
Vaughn said the misinformation and intimidation has gotten "exponentially worse" since 2016. Indiana's laws do not provide much protection or prevention of escalating situations, she said, noting the state allows people to electioneer within 50 feet of the polling place, one of the shortest distances in the country, and while the state permits voting sites to restrict weapons and post signs, the statute has no teeth, so officials can do little if anyone violates the restrictions.
"People (are) being very hostile to voters who they perceive to be making different choices from them," Vaughn said. "Hoosiers need to practice a lot more tolerance during election season than we have been. It just seems to be getting worse each presidential election year. We desperately need somebody to bring the temperature down."
Marilyn Odendahl wrote this article for The Indiana Citizen.
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As 2025 begins, there will be a record number of women serving in state legislatures nationwide.
More than 2,400 women will hold state legislative offices, representing more than 33%. Maine ranks ninth in the nation for statehouse gender parity with women holding 43% of seats.
Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, is pleased the trend is moving in the right direction.
"We need to see bigger jumps in terms of the numbers of women running and then getting elected in order to get closer to parity," Sinzdak pointed out. "We're certainly making progress but there's a ways to go."
Sinzdak explained when women run for office, they win, and it is good for democracy. She noted research shows women are more likely to build consensus among lawmakers and work across the aisle.
The election of Republican Kelly Ayotte as New Hampshire's next governor means a record 13 women will serve as a state chief executive next year, including Maine Gov. Janet Mills. Sinzdak argued the women serve as role models for other women to run for public office but cautioned recruitment efforts for women candidates are still lacking.
She acknowledged caregiving responsibilities often prevent women from running, along with the double standard they face from the public.
"Voters want them to be likeable as well as tough," Sinzdak observed. "Whereas for a lot of male candidates, they don't necessarily need to be likable they just need to be seen as being able to do the job."
Sinzdak emphasized women bring their unique life experiences to the job. In Maine, women lawmakers were instrumental in passing the state's new Paid Family and Medical Leave program and codifying reproductive freedoms into law. Still, the gains for women in statehouses nationwide come as Vice President Kamala Harris failed in her effort to become the first woman president.
Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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