Opinion: Education key to understanding and trusting our election system
Marian Krumberger, a Wisconsin Pillar, describes her experience meeting with state and local election officials for the Wisconsin Newspaper Association:
As a lifelong conservative and former Republican Party of Brown County Chair, I’ve dedicated countless hours to impacting outcomes of elections. Spurred by the attempted recall of former Governor Scott Walker to get involved in politics, I’ve always put my conservative principles above party labels and talking points. While I haven’t always liked the election results, especially when my candidate loses, after taking time to look closely at the administration of our elections, I do believe we can trust the process.
I recently heard from both state and local election officials as part of my involvement in Pillars of the Community organization. In that meeting, which not only gave us an overview of our state’s election process, we had the opportunity to ask election officials tough questions about current elections issues. The group took advantage of it, asking the election officials about hot button issues like active vs inactive voters on the rolls, ballot “dumps” in Milwaukee, concerns about non-citizens voting, and more. To the election officials’ credit, they didn’t sidestep any of the questions. They answered “hot button” questions as well as making suggestions where things can be improved.