'Stop Democrat interference': RNC sues WI town for not hiring enough GOP election workers

17 September 2024

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is announcing a lawsuit against a small Wisconsin town, and is alleging that the town is being unfair to Republicans in its hiring of election inspectors.

Matt Smith, a reporter with Wisconsin-based ABC affiliate station WISN, tweeted Tuesday that the RNC is accusing Racine, Wisconsin officials of violating state law that requires equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans to serve as election inspectors at voting precincts.

"Racine deliberately excluded Republicans and violated the law," RNC chairman Michael Whatley stated. "We are suing to hire the number of Republicans that Wisconsin state law requires, stop Democrat interference and uphold election integrity for our country's most important election."

In the Badger State, election inspectors assist with various administrative duties on Election Day like voter registration, managing the poll book showing registered voters who have shown up to cast ballots, issuing ballots to voters at polling places and processing absentee ballots. According to the statute outlining the rules for the appointment of election inspectors, municipalities are required to appoint an equal number of both Democrats and Republicans from lists of nominees submitted by both parties.

"The 2 dominant parties... are each responsible for submitting a list of names from which all appointees to inspector positions, other than appointees to inspector positions authorized... shall be chosen," the statute reads. "Each person submitting the name of one or more nominees shall certify on his or her list of nominations that the person has contacted each nominee whose name appears on the list and that each nominee has agreed to serve as an election official."

The RNC's lawsuit comes after a separate lawsuit against the Racine city clerk filed last week by two voters. Democracy Docket reported that the lawsuit alleges the city hired nonpartisan poll workers instead of Republicans during the August 2024 primary election, despite state law stipulating that partisan poll workers take precedent. The plaintiffs are petitioning the court to force the city to hire the statutorily required number of partisan poll workers ahead of the 2024 election.

"Poll watchers and poll workers bring transparency and accountability to the election process," read a press release posted to former President Donald Trump's website. "Failing to hire enough Republicans as election inspectors violates the law and undermines confidence in our elections."

Wisconsin is one of the three so-called "Blue Wall" states that flipped from blue to red in 2016, and from red to blue in 2020. Trump won the Badger State's 10 electoral votes by just over 27,000 ballots in 2016, and President Joe Biden won in Wisconsin by fewer than 21,000 votes four years later.

Trump has made "election integrity" a key plank of his 2024 campaign, and Republicans have already signaled plans for intense post-election litigation in multiple battleground states if Trump loses by narrow margins. The former president filed dozens of lawsuits in swing states following his loss to Biden in 2020, and nearly all of them were rejected — including some by judges appointed by Trump himself.

"We plan on having attorneys in all of these major polling locations across the country," RNC co-chair Lara Trump (the ex-president's daughter-in-law) said earlier this year. "We can't wait to litigate something weeks after it has happened. We need to strike at a moment's notice. We want people there on the ready to hit things and hit the ground running when they happen so that we are never seeing 2020 happen ever again."

The City of Racine has not yet responded to the RNC's claims.

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