Wisconsin’s election systems are secure thanks to the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s strong partnerships with federal and state agencies and local election officials.
In October 2016 the WEC published its first manual for clerks regarding contingency planning and election security. Since then, the WEC has been developing extensive plans for Election Security Preparation and Incident Prevention, Election Security Incident Response, and Election Security Communications.
The Commission has found no evidence that Wisconsin’s election systems have ever been compromised.
Election Security Report
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has worked to examine all aspects of security in relation to Wisconsin’s election administration technology and laws and drafted comprehensive plans to document the coordination between the WEC and other election security partners. The plans exist to detail the WEC’s election security preparation and steps WEC staff will pursue in the future to continue to keep Wisconsin’s elections secure.
wi.gov and .gov Email Domains
The WEC and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommend that municipal and county government emails, especially those used for election related information, should be easily identifiable as government entities. WEC is assisting municipalities in obtaining wi.gov and .gov email domains to increase election security and trust in their official election communications.
Election Integrity
The Wisconsin Elections Commission takes any allegation of election misconduct seriously, whether it is by candidates, voters, political parties, or other groups seeking to influence the outcome of elections. As part of its mission to ensure the integrity of individual ballots as well as election results in Wisconsin, the Commission continues its commitment to working with municipal and county election officials and local and statewide law enforcement agencies to prevent errors and opportunities for voter fraud and to detect and prosecute cases of illegal voting which may occur.
Election Security Subgrants
The Wisconsin Elections Commission will authorize Election Security Subgrants to local jurisdictions when state or federal grant funds are awarded and the Commission has approved a plan for their disbursement. All information related to available subgrants will be linked here.
Election Threat Reporting Tool
Being subjected to threats should never be a part of any of the work environment for any Wisconsin election official, and furthermore, threatening an election official is a crime in Wisconsin.