The Common Council met 10/05/2022. One of the items they took up was Resolution #11-R-22 a Resolution in Support of Election Officials. This resolution was recommended for approval by the Safety and Licensing Committee by a 4-1 vote, and during the 10/05/2022 Common Council meeting was approved by a 13-2 vote with Alderpersons Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) and Chad Doran (District 15) voting against it.
The “Whereas” portion of the resolution recognizes the 2020 general election as “safe, secure, and accessible during the Covid-19 pandemic”, speaks out against those in our society who “have attempted to bully, threaten, and undermine election administrators”, reaffirms the Common Council’s “conviction that nonpartisan election officials like our City Clerk and local election inspectors are best equipped to preside over free and fair elections, and should do so without the fear of threats and intimidation”, expresses the Council’s opposition to “any future attempts to seize power over elections from municipal clerks to grant it to any partisan entity,” and commits “to standing behind [our non-partisan election administrators] in the face of unfounded attacks.”
The resolution concludes by stating:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Common Council of the City of Appleton expresses full confidence in our City Clerk, citizen election inspectors, and Wisconsin’s system of bipartisan election administration.
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we support our friends and neighbors who serve as election inspectors and local election officials, including our City Clerk and city staff.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) was the main author of the resolution and started out the discussion at the Common Council meeting. She cited articles from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The New York Times detailing measures taken by Dane County and the election office in Madison in response to incidents that took place during the April 2022 election. She mentioned death threats received by Milwaukee’s top election official after the 2020 election and said that a Dane County task force found that clerks across Wisconsin have expressed concern about their safety and were the targets of violent rhetoric. The Dane County task for also found that out of a group of 50 Dane County clerks surveyed, 70% expressed varying degrees of concern for their personal safety and 84% said threats against election officials had increased in recent years. The Dane County task force was concerned that clerks offices would be short-staffed due to an exodus of qualified employees and volunteers who feared for their well-being. [I’ve included a PDF of the Dane County Election Security Review Committee below.]
She noted that, as discussed in the Safety and Licensing Committee meeting, Appleton had not seen those levels of threats and intimidation in Appleton, and the City Clerk’s staff and election officials had never been unable to complete their duties because of intimidation or threats of violence; however, the clerk and her staff had been yelled and sworn at and accused of inappropriate actions.
Alderperson Fenton hoped Appleton wouldn’t have to budget funds for additional security measures, but thought the least the Council could do was to show them the Common Council was united in supporting their work.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) started out by saying, “Clearly I support the clerk’s office and election officials in the city of Appleton.” She herself was an election official, having worked four elections.
Having said that, she did not believe that a resolution that did nothing was something the Council should approve and believed that if the Council wanted to remain united, as had been suggested, that each of the Council members sign up to be an election official.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 10) asked to call the question, but his motion failed. [Normally, I like it when he calls the question because it keeps things from dragging on too long, but I thought it was way too early for a vote to happen because there was clearly discussion that alderpersons wanted to have.]
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) thought approving this resolution was an easy way to support election workers. “I know that when I joined Council eight or nine years ago, it was a concern as to whether we could get enough election workers. It’s a concern as to whether we can get enough buildings who want to be polling sites. And now the environment has only gotten us so much more antagonistic.” Showing the upcoming generation of election workers that it was safe to work elections was important.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5), in regards to the concern that the resolution had no teeth, had the understanding that proclamations were the way the executive branch could make statements and resolutions were the mechanism for the legislative branch to make statements. She asked if City Attorney Christopher Behrens could confirm that.
Attorney Behrens answered, “I’m reluctant to answer ’cause I don’t want to be perceived as taking a position on it one way or the other, but this body’s free to introduce whatever resolutions it wants to and take whatever action it wants and evaluate to what extent that resolution does or doesn’t do anything.”
Alderperson Kristin Alfheim felt that the Council should be unanimous in making a statement to the Appleton community that the Council believed in city staff and volunteers and in speaking out against the “nonsense” that was creeping up into society. “I’ve had the opportunity in the last few months to be talking to people out and about, and I listened to about a 75-year-old lady tell me the other day that she would never vote again because of an action of something that took place five miles from here during the elections. So, the nonsense is not that far away.” [I just have to interject here. That was one of the more bizarre things I’ve heard someone say in a Council meeting. I understand wanting to try to maintain a person’s privacy, but the end result was something that was so incredibly vague the people hearing it have no idea what happened. At any rate…]
She said, “So, the nonsense is not that far away. It is near us, and it is creeping up, and I think all of us as adults, as potentially parents, at some point in time have to acknowledge good behavior and bad behavior.”
She believed that through the resolution they would be saying, “We believe in our people and there is no reason for nonsense. We believe in our volunteers. We believe in our community volunteers, including my colleague, in showing up and diligently, diligently operating something so sacred to all of us which is the right to vote.”
Alderperson Maiyoua Thao thought the resolution was very important and supported it. She understood it didn’t do anything but it would feel good to some people and make them feel safer. She was proud that some of “us” [not sure if she meant Council members or the community more generally] saw and were aware of situations happening around us. Being proactive was good.
Alderperson Schultz encouraged those who didn’t typically vote for issue items to reconsider voting for this resolution. He agreed that Appleton had not had any significant incidents as it polling places and hopefully wouldn’t have to add additional security, but some individuals in Appleton had performed hate crimes. [I’m not sure what he was referencing there.] Even though this resolution didn’t address hate crimes, there was a potential for things to happen in the Appleton community.
Per Alderperson Schultz, the 15 members of the Common Council represented the entire Appleton community across the political spectrum and it would be good to make a unanimous statement as a whole body. “We want to make a statement that we don’t tolerate this kind of activity in our community, and I think that sends a stronger message than any other action we might take. So, please if you typically don’t vote for these kinds of resolutions, please consider voting for this one.”
Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) believed actions spoke louder than words, “We’ve all at one point or another now expressed that we support our clerk and the clerk staff and our election workers, which I guess accomplishes what this resolution accomplishes and kind of makes it moot in my opinion. But again, this just boils down to words on paper. If one of our election workers is being harassed by someone, I’m not sure these words on a piece of paper are gonna make them feel any better.”
He was frustrated by the number of resolutions the Council had discussed and voted on over the last year and a half which had no other action than words on paper. “We want to make sure that our election workers and our clerks staff feels safe? Then let’s do something about that, but I don’t think us making this public statement with a piece of paper makes them feel any safer.”
Aside from those concerns, he also had an issue with some of the language in the resolution and he made a motion to remove paragraphs 4 through 7 which he believed were confusing. “They’re somewhat inflammatory, and I think don’t help accomplish the actual intent of the resolution which talks about supporting our election officials.”
Paragraphs 4-7 read as follows:
WHEREAS, over the past year, some in our society have attempted to bully, threaten, and undermine election administrators, making it harder for election officials to do their jobs, which reduces faith in the electoral process and hurts the health of our democracy; and
WHEREAS, looking forward to the 2022 election and beyond, we reaffirm our conviction that nonpartisan election officials like our City Clerk and local election inspectors are best equipped to preside over free and fair elections, and should do so without the fear of threats and intimidation; and
WHEREAS, this Common Council strongly opposes any future attempts to seize power over elections from municipal clerks to grant it to any partisan entity; and
WHEREAS, as long as our non-partisan election administrators continue to administer our elections with accessibility, fairness, equality, safety, and security in mind, we are fully committed to standing behind them in the face of unfounded attacks.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) said, “I guess I would just say I’m opposed to this amendment. I believe that the reality of the world we’re living in unfortunately is that some of the things that are in those paragraphs are true and they need to be said and we need to be eyes wide open about the reality of the world we live in as unfortunate as it may seem.”
Alderperson Fenton stated that those paragraphs were integral to the purpose of the resolution. “Paragraph four is a fact. Paragraph five is a restatement that the people that we’re talking about are the best equipped to preside over elections. Paragraph six is the statement that the Council opposes any attempts to seize power over elections from our clerks who administer them. And the last paragraph says that as long as the people who are tasked with administering these elections with accessibility, fairness, equality, safety, and security in mind, we’re fully committed to standing with them. This is the heart of the resolution; the ‘therefore be it resolved’ is great, but if we’re making a statement, these four paragraphs are integral to that statement and I would just strongly beg my colleagues to leave them in this resolution.”
Alderperson Meltzer asked to call the question for the motion to amend. When the motion to call the question passed, the Council voted 2-13 against the motion to amend with Alderpersons Hartzheim and Doran casting the two votes in favor.
The Council returned to discussion the original resolution.
Alderperson Van Zeeland encourage those who said they supported this but said it lacked action to amend it to give it some action.
Alderperson Fenton noted that when she originally wrote the resolution it had included an action which was to have a Saturday session of in-person absentee voting. However, when she spoke with the mayor and the clerk, she learned that had already been planned for, yet another example of the city clerk and her staff meeting the needs of the community to have free, fair, and accessible elections. “But I stand by the other part, so I chose to remove the action section of the resolution and keep the rest of it.”
Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) asked to call the question which was approved. The Council then went on to approve the resolution 13-2 with Alderpersons Hartzheim and Doran voting no.
[I thought it was kind of weird that supporters of this resolution expressed a desire for a unanimous vote but didn’t seem to be willing to engage in the sort of negotiation that would have been necessary to get a unanimous vote. It’s not like they didn’t know Alderpersons Hartzheim and Doran are quite set in their opposition to “statement” resolutions. If a unanimous vote was genuinely important, a good starting point to accomplishing that would have been to talk to them when writing the resolution and possibly collaborate with them on something that they could support.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=997430&GUID=CC2EFB36-498F-4A6B-B4CD-DDA542428A4D
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