Wisconsin’s Elections Administration Procedures and Agenda Under Review
Elections Division Administrator Nat Robinson is inviting Wisconsin’s local election officials to submit ideas and input to fuel a “post-mortem” about the 2008 election cycle, and what the G.A.B. can do to further improve elections administration processes, procedures and practices. In addition, Nat is seeking feedback on what needs be considered for an Elections Legislative Agenda. Comments and recommendations should be submitted by Monday, January 12 to @email.
SVRS Standards Committee Recommendations Posted. Deadline: 12/12/08
The November 24 meeting of the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS) Standards Committee yielded draft recommendations for carrying out the Wisconsin statutory Four-Year Voter Records Maintenance, and Retroactive HAVA Checks. Committee members made specific suggestions that should be reviewed by all clerks by Friday, December 12. Local election officials were sent the recommendations with a cover memo on Monday, December 1. Those materials were posted to the Elections Division homepage on November 28, at http://elections.state.wi.us.
Verifying Potential SVRS Death and Felon Matches for Data Quality
After municipalities finish entering registrations and voter history for the November 2008 election, they should address unresolved felon and death matches in SVRS. To check for felon and death matches, expand the Voter node in SVRS and highlight the Voter Match sub-node. Then search for matches of each type. If there are felon or death matches, double-click to open up the match, compare the information given, and confirm or deny the match. If a voter record has been manually inactivated because of a felon record match, or cancelled a voter record because of a death record match, and you still see a potential match in the Voter Match node, mark that potential match as “Not a Match” to resolve it. An overview of the matching process is on the WBETS site: http://electiontraining.wiscnet.net. Click on Training Courses, and HAVA Interfaces. Questions should be directed to the Help Desk at 608-261-2028.
Reminders and Elaboration about Spring Election Deadlines
December 1 was the first day spring candidates could begin obtaining signatures on nomination papers. Encourage them to submit a Campaign Registration Statement (EB-1) as soon as they decide to run. Engaging in campaign activity without being registered is a violation of campaign finance law, and circulating papers is campaign activity.
To avoid an extension of the filing deadline, incumbents who do not intend to run for their current position must file a Notification of Noncandidacy (EB-163) no later than Friday, December 26th. (If the office is closed on December 26th, the deadline is the next business day.) If incumbents do not plan to run, encourage them to file the EB-163. If an incumbent does not file, and does not file ballot access documents by the January 6 deadline, there will be an extension of the filing deadline for other candidates. The extension does not apply to the incumbent.
Municipalities that use the caucus system of nomination are not affected by the noncandidacy deadline. If an incumbent nominated at the caucus fails to return the completed Campaign Registration Statement (EB-1) and Declaration of Candidacy (EB-162) within five days after receiving written notification by personal delivery, or within 5 days after the date written notification was mailed, the deadline for filing the forms by other candidates nominated at the caucus for that office will be extended an additional three days. The extension applies whether or not the incumbent has filed a Notification of Noncandidacy. The three-day extension does not apply to the incumbent.
Candidates for Municipal Judge or Multi-jurisdictional Municipal Judge must file a Statement of Economic Interest with the Ethics and Accountability Division no later than 4:30 p.m. on Friday, January 9, 2009