Wisconsin law firm challenges potential voting booth electioneering attempts

A city clerk in Neenah, Wisconsin, has been stopped from posting explanatory material about the constitutional amendment ballot proposals inside voting booths, actions that could have been considered illegal electioneering.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty sent a warning letter Wednesday to Neenah City Clerk Char Nagel, after it received reports from voters that election workers at the Neenah City Hall early voting site had displayed a news article inside all voting booths.

The article characterized the two nonpartisan referendum questions on the ballot as partisan measures, painting a YES vote as the Republican stance and a NO vote as the Democrat stance.

“Neenah’s City Clerk had no right to try to put a thumb on the scale to manipulate the opinions of voters. This should serve as a warning to other election clerks to abide by the rules in Wisconsin law,” WILL Deputy Counsel Dan Lennington said.

Wisconsin state law prohibits both electioneering – any activity intended to influence voting – and posting or distributing election-related materials at polling places.

According to reports from multiple voters, when confronted about the practices, Nagel claimed that “we have to explain” the referendum questions because “voters don’t understand” what they mean.

“Not only is it not your job to signal to voters which 'side' supports these questions, you are prohibited from doing so,” authors of the WILL’s letter wrote. “Placing a news article characterizing referendum questions as partisan within each voting booth and elsewhere at the polling location clearly violates both state laws.”

The law firm threatened to report Nagel to the authorities if she did not immediately remove and prohibit further postings of election-related material at the polling place.

In response to the letter, Neenah City Attorney David Rashid denied Nagel’s activities constituted electioneering, but agreed to comply with WILL’s demands anyway.

“While we respectfully disagree with your appraisal of both the facts and the applicable law as may relate thereto, in the interest of maintaining election integrity and avoiding even the appearance of impropriety, the subject material was immediately removed at the request of the citizen and will not be permitted to be re-posted,” Rashid wrote. “Moreover, nothing other than ballots and marking instruments will be present in our voting booths.”

The proposed amendments would require the governor to obtain the state legislature’ approval on some spending decisions that involve federal funding.