Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (R) plans to send Special Agents and Assistant Attorneys General to monitor election day goings-on at select Wisconsin locations. Unfortunately, according to Rep. Jon Richards, Van Hollen will send nine teams to Milwaukee and Madison, but NO teams to Washington or Ozaukee Counties, and ONE team to Waukesha County. Unsurprisingly, some have taken issue with this plan.
On Sunday morning, Representative Jon Richards sent an email to Van Hollen’s office to express his concern over an election day plan that seems “politically motivated.”
From the email:
Washington, Ozaukee, and Waukesha Counties are some of the highest turnout counties in the state. Likewise, the cities of Waukesha, Brookfield and New Berlin, within Waukesha County, are major cities that are of comparable size and which deserve the same attention you are giving to Appleton, Wausau, Beloit and La Crosse.
The citizens of Wisconsin deserve and expect fair elections regardless of where they live–and should not be targeted by state agents because of their political affiliation. Therefore, in the interest of fairness and equal protection, I request that you allocate extra teams of state attorneys and special agents to Washington, Ozaukee, and Waukesha Counties.
That makes sense. Additionally:
Areas with traditionally high Republican turnout deserve the same level of scrutiny that the Department of Justice is giving areas with traditionally high Democratic turnout. Please revise the Department of Justice’s election day activities to serve all Wisconsinites, regardless of party, and not just the interests of the Republican Party. I look forward to your immediate reply.
While Rep. Richards awaits a response from AG J.B. Van Hollen, I’d like to remind everyone that citizens of Waukesha County will be watching the polls closely on election day. Kathy Nickolaus will be running the election again (we think-it’s hard to get a straight answer), so in addition to the Wisconsin Voter Protection Team‘s monitoring of the polls, Jeff Christensen and I will bring back #WaukeshaWatch (details here.)
Remember to get your contest entries in by 7:59 pm on 6/5!
The election observers must take pictures of the poll tapes at the end of the day, AT EVERY SITE> This is legal and if you don’t do it, you can be sure of the results the events with Kathy Nicklaus made us blatantly aware of that!!!