How Meagan Wolfe navigates scrutiny to make elections stronger

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This text was initially printed by Votebeat, a nonprofit information group overlaying native election administration and voting entry.

Shortly after former Wisconsin Supreme Court docket Justice Michael Gableman commenced his error-ridden and fruitless investigation into the state’s 2020 election, he raised eyebrows when he derided chief election official Meagan Wolfe’s clothes decisions.

“Black costume, white pearls — I’ve seen the act, I’ve seen the present,” he mentioned on a conservative radio program in spring 2022.

Not lengthy after that remark, Wolfe was scheduled to seem at a county clerk convention, and a county clerk purchased pretend pearl necklaces for everybody within the room, in line with Wooden County Clerk Trent Miner, a Republican.

“Each one in all us, males, girls … have been sporting these pearl necklaces to point out help for her,” he mentioned. “There’s nothing however help from the county clerks for Meagan and the job that she does.”

In distinction with that nearly unanimous help from clerks, he mentioned, many of the criticism she’s acquired is predicated on false conspiracy theories or from individuals who don’t know her or perceive her function on the Wisconsin Elections Fee.

Since turning into the fee’s nonpartisan administrator six years in the past, Wolfe has confronted dying threats, repeated efforts to oust her, opposition from President-elect Donald Trump, and extra lawsuits than you possibly can rely on two fingers.

It’s the sort of intense strain that has triggered many election officers to depart their roles lately. However within the eyes of different election officers, Wolfe has thrived. A lot of her friends say she is a nonpartisan and clear-headed mannequin for navigating the world of election administration at a time when election officers are underneath ever-increasing scrutiny.

For Wolfe, that strain was only a din of principally political noise seeping into the already-complicated work of election administration. Even earlier than the 2020 election, she realized how to deal with a degree of stress that has now grow to be the norm.

“I can not think about what it might be prefer to be able or an setting the place we’re not consistently placing out fires,” Wolfe instructed Votebeat. “I’ve come to essentially like and recognize these challenges. The place a problem comes up, we now have to determine learn how to overcome it, learn how to accomplish this factor that’s by no means been executed earlier than.”

Politics inherent to the job for Wolfe

Wolfe, who has levels in strategic communications and English writing, got here into her administrative job with an extended election background. That stands out from the various election chiefs throughout the nation who begin their roles with little or no election expertise.

When Wolfe was employed on the fee’s predecessor, the Authorities Accountability Board in 2011, her function was to assist implement and practice clerks and voters in regards to the state’s new voter ID regulation. The regulation, which was the goal of litigation, was “very divisive,” Wolfe mentioned.

In her coaching classes, she mentioned, “I’d begin every little thing by saying, ‘I’m not right here to speak about if it is a good regulation or it is a dangerous regulation. I’m simply right here to inform you what the regulation is and what all of us must know to have the ability to navigate it.’”

These experiences, together with the persevering with political and authorized battles she faces, she mentioned, have given her a capability “to separate the noise that’s supposed to distract us, supposed to sway us from what the vital issues are that truly deserve our assets and our consideration.”

“Should you don’t have that have and perspective,” she mentioned, “then it’s very easy to fall into the entice of, right here’s this actually loud voice or this actually loud declare that’s being made, let’s shift all of our assets and our time and every little thing over to coping with that, after which it permits different issues to fall by the wayside.”

Wolfe moved into IT and management roles earlier than turning into administrator in 2018. A few of her work has been groundbreaking throughout the nation.

For instance, Wolfe oversaw the in-house growth of the statewide registration system and made Wisconsin among the many first states to deploy multi-factor authentication for election officers to entry that kind of system — a vital cybersecurity software.

Wisconsin looks as if an “unlikely candidate” to develop these complicated programs, Wolfe mentioned, however the state has probably the most decentralized election system within the nation, which suggests there are few ready-made packages that it might simply implement.

“We’re used to having to only type of trailblaze,” she mentioned.

Each of these programs grew to become fashions for different states, together with Rhode Island, whose former election director Rob Rock known as Wolfe when the state was making an attempt to develop its personal custom-built system.

“I actually had no concept how to do that, and so to have somebody who sort of helped me out by means of this course of was actually instrumental,” mentioned Rock, who’s now Rhode Island’s deputy secretary of state. “We definitely wouldn’t have the system we now have right this moment if it wasn’t for people like Meagan and her perception into how they did it in Wisconsin.”

Added Rock, “Meagan is among the greatest election directors on this nation. I say that with out hesitation in any respect.”

Wolfe’s accomplishments led to her taking management roles in nationwide organizations, such because the Digital Registration Data Heart and Nationwide Affiliation of State Election Administrators.

Final 12 months, the latter group gave Wisconsin an award for creating a set of movies outlining how elections work.

Clerks recall Wolfe being there in instances of want

A good portion of Wolfe’s job is to be a conduit between state and native election officers.

She seems at clerk conferences to replace native election officers on altering legal guidelines and oversees packages to coach an ever-evolving solid of full- and part-time county and municipal clerks.

Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood, a Republican, mentioned she has come to lean on Wolfe, generally for emotional help and different instances for recommendation.

This previous election cycle, Trueblood confronted a contentious main from an opponent who, she mentioned, accused her of corruption and focused her over an excellent rushing ticket, calling her a fugitive from justice and saying she was unfit to serve.

Because the assaults wore on, Trueblood mentioned, Wolfe gave her a name to see how she was doing.

“She was not taking any sides,” Trueblood mentioned. “She wasn’t involving herself politically in any respect. She was simply checking in on a fellow human.”

“That claims rather a lot about an individual’s character,” Trueblood added.

One other native election official, Douglas County Clerk Kaci Jo Lundgren, a Democrat, recalled Wolfe being there for her when she was in a pinch.

Forward of the August election this 12 months, Lundgren mistakenly assigned the mistaken Meeting district on each poll in a small city. After catching the error on election day, Lundgren mentioned, one in all her first strikes was to name Wolfe for recommendation.

There wasn’t a lot the fee might do, Lundgren recalled, however Wolfe provided her templates to speak the error to the city’s voters. Moreover, Lundgren mentioned Wolfe supplied emotional help.

“I felt like one mistake ruined every little thing for me. And he or she affirmed that I used to be right here as a result of I’m doing job, and I’m upset as a result of I care,” Lundgren mentioned. “She is aware of what it’s prefer to cope with tough conditions in elections, and since it was my first time having to cope with one thing so tough, it was simply good to have her as a useful resource.”

One determine in nationwide elections, Carolina Lopez, the manager director of the Partnership for Giant Election Jurisdictions, recalled a very risky time in Wisconsin elections round 2022, when courts have been flip-flopping on the legality of drop packing containers.

Throughout that point, she mentioned, the elections fee despatched fast updates to make native election officers conscious of the latest modifications.

“That’s most likely the most important factor you can do for … your counties and the folks that you simply associate with – it’s immediate communication, clear communication.”

For all of the credit score that clerks give Wolfe, the state’s high election official mentioned she has it straightforward in comparison with them.

“If we don’t have them and we don’t have folks which can be resilient and resourceful and compassionate and difficult in every of our communities, then this doesn’t work, proper?” Wolfe mentioned. “And so my job is absolutely simply to help them.”

Wolfe turns into GOP goal after 2020 election

After the 2020 election, a mess of distinguished Republicans, together with Trump, blamed Wolfe for Trump’s loss in that 12 months’s election. They baselessly alleged fraud and known as for investigations and her ouster, blaming her for a slew of selections by election commissioners that she had no vote on, like bypassing a state regulation that ordinarily requires sending election officers to conduct elections in nursing houses.

Requires a brand new administrator haven’t totally ceased. However now, over 4 years after Wolfe grew to become a goal, scores of individuals within the election neighborhood — and even many Republican leaders — are prepared to maneuver on.

The Legislature’s high Republican, Meeting Speaker Robin Vos, was just lately requested on WISN 12 if the Meeting would transfer to question Wolfe. Vos, who had licensed Gableman’s investigation, known as it unlikely, including, “I really need 2020 to be within the rearview mirror.”

Trueblood, the Marathon County clerk, mentioned there’s a way of camaraderie between native election officers and Wolfe, particularly after she grew to become focused within the wake of the 2020 election.

“For some time, she wasn’t going wherever by herself for concern of her personal security,” Trueblood mentioned. “I don’t care what your political emotions about anyone are, issues like that simply aren’t okay. And I feel all of us developed a extremely shut bond together with her.”

If that vitriol will get underneath Wolfe’s pores and skin, she’s not expressing it.

“I’ve at all times felt actually strongly that we can not permit folks threatening us, harassing us, bullying us, no matter you need to name it – we can not permit that to sway how we behave or, in my place, to cease me from going out and speaking to the general public about how elections work,” Wolfe mentioned. “As a result of in some methods I view that as virtually giving in to partisan strain … and I’m simply not going to try this.”

Clean 2024 election signal that Wolfe ought to proceed, former chief says

Regardless of efforts to maneuver ahead, the combat to focus on and oust Wolfe has continued into 2024, previous the November election, which for probably the most half went off with no hitch.

After 2020, the fee acquired 1000’s of calls and emails replete with election conspiracy theories and false claims, she mentioned. For the reason that 2024 election, she mentioned, conspiracy theory-laden calls and emails quantity within the single digits.

No less than one important hurdle awaits, although.

As Wolfe’s time period expired in the summertime of 2023, the election fee deadlocked on her reappointment. She remained in her function as a holdover appointee and, together with the fee, filed a lawsuit in opposition to GOP legislative leaders who sought to oust her.

That case is pending earlier than the Wisconsin Supreme Court docket. In November’s oral arguments, a majority of justices appeared skeptical of the argument in opposition to her.

Each of Wolfe’s predecessors expressed help for her to remain in her job.

Mike Haas, who was administrator on the accountability board and later grew to become the fee’s first administrator, mentioned the sleek administration of the 2024 election “is proof that the precise individual is within the job and may proceed in it.”

Added Haas, “It will be good in Wisconsin if we might get to a place of individuals supporting election officers, slightly than being targeted on creating imaginary conspiracy theories.”

Kevin Kennedy, who was Wisconsin’s chief election official for over 30 years, mentioned each he and Haas have been replaceable — and Wolfe is simply too.

However Kennedy puzzled why folks would need to change “somebody who’s actually good.”

“I feel it’s greatest for Wisconsin if she stays,” he mentioned.

For her half, Wolfe mentioned she has “no instant plans to depart” if she wins that case and continues to obtain the election commissioners’ approval. She has many ongoing tasks, but in addition desires to gauge what subsequent 12 months seems to be like, she mentioned.

Wolfe additionally questioned whether or not she might get in the way in which of her company’s capabilities, like finances negotiations. If there’s ever a time “the place me being on this function looks as if it’s not productive to the wants of our company or the state,” she mentioned, then she might reevaluate staying on the fee, “as a result of this isn’t about me. It’s a lot greater and extra vital than me.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat primarily based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

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