WI Poll Watcher Warns Observers Being Taught To Be ‘Delicate’

Republicans in the battleground Badger State say they’ve got an army of election observers ready for duty this Election Day. But one volunteer who will be observing at Milwaukee polls is raising concerns about what he sees as the GOP’s timid approach to checking threats on election integrity. 

The source, who asked to remain anonymous, attended a recent Zoom training session for attorney observers led by the Republican National Lawyers Association. The session was off the record and closed to the press, but the source sent the video recording of the Zoom meeting to The Federalist because he said he was concerned that the people serving as frontline guardians of election integrity may be going much too gently into that good Election Night. 

“This is the first time I had not heard, ‘Don’t be afraid to assert your rights’ in some form,” the veteran elections observer told me in a phone interview from Wisconsin.  

RNLA trainers leading the session stressed that the job of the monitoring attorneys is to be the association’s “eyes and ears,” to serve as a deterrent for misconduct and election fraud, but to do so without being “confrontational.” That’s understandable advice from Milwaukee election veterans who lived through 2020, when poll watchers were blocked from viewing and some were threatened with removal under the cover of Covid distance restrictions. 

With the phony narrative pushed by corporate media that election workers are under constant threat from “election deniers,” power-tripping chief inspectors might be on hair-trigger edge to banish observers — particularly in Milwaukee, Madison, and other deep blue Wisconsin cities with histories of transparency troubles. 

But the insider who spoke to The Federalist said the RNLA Wisconsin training session went too far in drilling deference for poll workers into the heads of poll observers. 

‘Delicate Approach’

On the video, one of the trainers tells the attorneys that if they see an election official “just going through the motions,” not really checking the voter for proof of residence, “that could be something you want to politely bring to the Chief Election Inspector’s attention as soon as you can.” The chief inspector manages the polling site. 

One of the trainers talked about an incident in a prior election in which he “observed individuals essentially using get-out-the-vote cards as proof of residence.” He said Republican attorneys witnessed “maybe four or five people” present the cards to poll workers, who accepted them. They didn’t rush in to question the clear election integrity issue, but instead chose to, well, observe. 

“But you’ve got to use your judgment,” the trainer said. “As much as we want to storm the table and mandate that they stop the practice, we kind of observed it a few times and … we found a lull in the action where there wasn’t a lot going on and we talked to the chief inspector and we alerted her to, ‘Hey, we’ve observed some people using get-out-the-vote cards, which are clearly not proof of residence.’ And, to her credit, she went and had her conversation with those poll workers and they stopped doing that.” 

“So, again, having that kind of delicate approach can work because, again, we don’t want to be causing a scene and in that situation I feel like we did a good job in stopping that practice,” the trainer added. “Yes, maybe there were a handful of individuals that voted that shouldn’t have, but in the grand scheme of things we stopped a potentially much larger problem from occurring.” 

Perhaps, but what about the four or five ineligible votes? What about the idea of one man one vote? What about the election integrity maxim that each fraudulent vote dilutes the ballots cast by eligible voters? Despite the dismissals of the accomplice media, voter fraud happens, and it can make a difference in the outcome of elections. 

Call Me ‘Chief’

The Republican National Lawyers Association trainers sounded a tone of concession, telling the attorney poll watchers that the chief inspectors have “a lot of power” and they like to wield it. 

“They do get a little territorial sometimes,” one of the trainers says. “It’s their day.” He recommended observers refer to the election site’s manger as “chief.” Stroke the ego. The show of respect often pays off. 

“If they’ve made a decision they don’t like you and they’re going to kick you out, it’s going to happen. There really is no recourse until after the fact,” a trainer warned. “The important thing is not that you win an argument with the election inspector, it’s that you’re there.” 

The attorney observers are not in the business of verification, the trainers advised, noting that there is no way for them to check basic identification. 

“Verification based on Social Security numbers, we’re not verifying that,” one trainer explained. “The reality is, if they have a Social Security Number and they give [election inspectors] four digits and they put it on the form, there’s really no mechanism in that process built in the statutes in real time to confirm that.” 

The same goes for citizenship. 

“It’s a box you check now. This form is technically sworn under oath by the voter under penalties of perjury,” the trainer said. An honor system.

Citizenship is a big issue in this election. As The Federalist has reported, thousands of foreign nationals have shown up on voter rolls across the country. Wisconsin’s election administrator admits that “illegal registrants” are on the Badger States Voter rolls. Just how many is not known. A lawsuit filed in September alleges the state Department of Transportation is refusing to provide the Wisconsin Elections Commission with the tools necessary to identify noncitizens in the voter registration database. 

‘What’s the Goal? 

The trainers leading the Republican National Lawyers Association sessions warn against “making a scene.” 

“For the most part, you’re going to have to sort of rely on these election workers to do their job because we’d rather have you do that than start interfering with the voter, right?” one of the trainers says on the video, referring to observing how voters use their phones at the polls. “We’d rather have you be there watching and not be able to see the details than not be there at all.”

But the attorney observer who spoke to The Federalist questions what he sees as an overly cautious philosophy. Could such an apprehensive approach cost former President Donald Trump and down-ticket Republicans on the ballot victory in Wisconsin? President Joe Biden, the Democrat Party’s candidate at the time, won the Badger State by less than 21,000 votes in 2020. 

“What’s the goal?” The veteran observer said. “The goal is to win this election fairly. I think we will win, if we have a fair vote.” 

Michael Thielen, executive director of the Republican  National Lawyers Association, said the goal “is an open, transparent and fair election.” 

“That’s what we’re going for,” he told The Federalist Monday evening in a phone interview. “We believe that light is the greatest disinfectant, that elections officials are more likely to do the right thing if they know they are being watched.” 

He said he supports what he says is a reasonable approach to observing elections, that poll watchers don’t need to come out “guns blazing” in raising election integrity questions. Generally, monitors get better results when they calmly explain the apparent problem to elections officials, he said. 

All that said, Thielen did live through 2020, when Democrat-picked election workers in Milwaukee refused to allow observers to stand within 3- to 8-feet of by poll workers as laid out in the law.

“2020 was absolutely horrid. In my opinion, what they did was completely wrong and unfair,” Thielen said. “Observers had to be far away under the guise of Covid. It was purely partisan, trying to hide what they were doing.” 

Access Denied

The games have already started in Milwaukee. 

On Monday, the Republican National Committee sued the city of Milwaukee, alleging the Milwaukee Election Commission without good reason is limiting the number of election poll watchers at some polling locations. The lawsuit alleges the limiting began with early voting. 

In a statement, RNC chairman Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump said Wisconsin voters “deserve to know that there are poll watchers form both parties in the room as votes are being cast and counted on Election Day.”

“The RNC has not recruited and trained thousands of volunteers in the Badger State simply to back down from misguided officials who want to prevent a full measure of poll-watching transparency,” the party leaders said. “This lawsuit will compel officials in Milwaukee to ensure robust poll watcher access for the Republican Party.”

The Election Commission denied the RNC’s claim that the limitations are “arbitrary, but did say “observers may be subject to reasonable limitations” in accordance with state law, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. 

For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.