On April 17, the Wisconsin State Board of Elections (which is formally named the Government Accountability Board) ruled unanimously that it has no authority to remove candidates from the upcoming Democratic primaries, in the special gubernatorial and legislative recall elections, just because those candidates aren’t loyal to the Democratic Party.
Some individuals are running in the Democratic legislative recall primaries because, by guaranteeing that there are at least two Democrats running, the state must hold a Democratic primary, and that has the indirect effect of postponing the election itself from May to June. These individuals, from all the evidence, are partisan Republicans, and the Republican Party doesn’t want the special legislative elections to be in May; instead they want them in June, at the same time as the gubernatorial recall special election.
But, Wisconsin has had an open primary since 1907, and has never had voter registration by party. See this story.
Wisconsin has a particularly open primary. They hand the voter a packet of party ballots that are attached. The voter detaches the one they want to vote, and folds the others. They stick the one they want to vote in the ballot box, and the others in a discard ballot box.
I’m not sure whether the choice is public, but there would not be a public record.
And the law says that if a candidate is nominated by several parties, they have to choose which party they will run for in the general election.
Of course, Wisconsin should just go ahead and switch to a Top 2 system. If the recall were treated like the special election primary in California, it would be possible for a candidate to be elected in the primary, so turnout would be heavy in both the primary, and ensuing runoff.
Where I vote, all primaries are on the same ballot and you just choose one. Never heard of Jim Riley’s system, but I suppose different parts of the state use different systems.
Richard, I believe it is still called the Government Accountability Board unless I missed something.
#2 The system described in statute are with attached ballots:
5.62? Partisan primary ballots.
(1)?
(a) At the partisan primary, the following ballot shall be provided for the nomination of candidates of recognized political parties for national, state and county offices and independent candidates for state office in each ward, in the same form as prescribed by the board under s. 7.08 (1) (a), except as authorized in s. 5.655. The ballots shall be made up of the several party tickets with each party entitled to participate in the primary under par. (b) or sub. (2) having its own ballot, except as authorized in s. 5.655. The ballots shall be secured together at the bottom. The party ballot of the party receiving the most votes for president or governor at the last general election shall be on top with the other parties arranged in descending order based on their vote for president or governor at the last general election. The ballots of parties qualifying under sub. (2) shall be placed after the parties qualifying under par. (b), in the same order in which the parties filed petitions with the board. Any ballot required under par. (b) 2. shall be placed next in order. At polling places where voting machines are used, each party shall be represented in one or more separate columns or rows on the ballot. At polling places where an electronic voting system is used other than an electronic voting machine, each party may be represented in separate columns or rows on the ballot.
The implementation used on voting machines and electronic voting systems are more like you describe. Are paper ballots used anywhere in Wisconsin?
I wouldn’t be surprised if “attached” meant a staple or paper clip. Elections were a lot more informal before vendors realized they could make elections so expensive that we can’t afford to have as many.
I voted absentee one time, and the ballot were a bunch of separate pieces of mimeographed papers with pictures of birds on them for the various legislative and congressional districts and other jurisdictions I could vote in.
Anyhow in states like Ohio and Illinois you have to go to the polling place and declare your fealty to a party before you can vote; while in Texas you don’t have to take a loyalty oath, but may have to go to a separate polling place to vote in a primary and can only vote in one. So while you’re not meaningfully restricted from switching, there is a public record.
While in Wisconsin and some other states the party “affiliation” if you can call it that is private.
Are paper ballots used anywhere in Wisconsin?
Yes, I’ve only ever voted with paper ballots.
Did a little research now and apparently I’ve been using optical scan equipment when voting. With this you connect the arrow next to the name. If you mess up the machine will spit the ballot back out and you will be given a new one. The Government Accountability Board has a list of every system in use on their website. It turns out quite a few municipalities still use old fashioned paper ballots.
#5 This has a map of the different voting systems used
http://gab.wi.gov/elections-voting/voting-equipment/voting-equipment-use
It’s kind of interesting. As you’d expect electronic systems are used in the more populous southeast, but then there is a strip paper ballots, but then another electronic system curving northeast from the Twin Cities to UP Michigan, another paper ballot area, and then Superior.
There is a requirement that any town with more than 7500 electors use electronic equipment. So even in the paper ballot counties, there are little green spots for the larger towns.
“electronic” in this case is defined as the equipment that does tabulation – so equipment that is used to assist in the marking of a ballot (and there must be one such device at every polling place) is not considered to be tabulating equipment.
I couldn’t find anything specific about how paper ballots are attached. There is a requirement that each party ballot be the same size and color. So it looks like someone watching could only be tell if you voted one ballot.
A curious tidbit, is that each recall election is considered to be an independent election, it is just happenstance that the governor, lieutenant governor, and some senators are having recalls on the same day.
And as such, a voter can choose a different party for each office.