KRONENWETTER, Wis. (WSAW) - A voter in Kronenwetter is accusing the village clerk of obstructing an observer during the public testing of voting machines ahead of Election Day.
Daniel Kindelberger filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission Thursday. The commission received the complaint and gave the village until Nov. 27 to provide a written response.
7 Investigates emailed the clerk, but she referred the response to village president, Chris Voll citing "company policy." Voll responded via email, "(T)he village just heard of the complaint yesterday. We're in the process of investigating the allegations surrounding the complaint. When we get our response ready, we will send that off to the WEC."
Kindelberger based his complaint off of email exchanges between Dan Joling who is a voter in Kronenwetter and formerly the village's police chief, and Clerk Bobbi Birk-LaBarge. He believes Joling, as an observer, should have been allowed to video record the public testing of the voting machines and that the clerk miscited statute that does not allow observers to record video at the polls.
"Her email states that she stopped Mr. Joling from recording in accordance with statute 7.41(1). The statute clearly references a polling place where votes are cast not a public inspection of the tabulation machine," Kindelberger wrote in the complaint.
Kindelberger also alleges there was not proper public notice given of the public tabulation testing. The village posted a notice on Oct. 25 and Oct. 27 on its Facebook page about the public testing on Oct. 28. Kindelberger also noted it had been posted on the village bulletin board, which is at the entrance of the village. However, Kindelberger claimed it had not been posted in the newspaper as required in Wis. Stat. 5.84(1).
He referenced a WEC press release that affirms the testing as a public meeting. He stated in his complaint, "Since WEC does not specify otherwise, it is reasonable to attribute the rights defined in other public meetings to also apply at this public meeting involving the testing of the vote tabulation machine." Kindelberger then references a law under "open meetings of governmental bodies" that requires the governmental body to accommodate anyone wanting to record, film, or photograph the meeting unless it interferes with the meeting or the rights of participants.
Kindelberger accused Birk-LaBarge of holding a grudge against Joling, citing her removal of Joling from the list of election inspectors as noted in a previous WEC complaint against the village. That complaint from March has not concluded.
The WEC determined another complaint filed on Oct. 24 was not properly filed as the complaintant (the superintendent of the Mosinee School District) did not live in the village as required by statute.
Kindelberger's complaint concluded, "I for one would have liked to have seen Mr. Joiling's (sic) video along with any questions that he had. The village clerk's refusal to allow him to record the public test was an infringement on my right as a voter, along with the increasing suspicion that Kronenwetter elections are not being conducted honestly."
The email exchange alludes to an earlier conversation where Joling had questioned the ability of absentee ballots to be counted in Kronenwetter due to folds in the ballot. He reached out to the host of NHPR's 'All Things Considered' asking about her reporting of ballots in Windham, New Hampshire and included her response in his email to Birk-LaBarge.
"I see that on Monday there is a tabulator certification and was wondering if this matter could also be checked to insure (sic) the folding of the ballots are not affecting the results," Joling requested on Oct. 27.
Birk-LaBarge responded soon after with a lengthy explanation of the process. She began, "I understand your concern reading that article. However, voting specialists say that a crease through a candidate's name would not invalidate a cast ballot. It is almost impossible to design a ballot where folds would not go through any name areas. The DS200 machines we use are not affected by folds."
She continued to explain the system and added that if a ballot cannot be scanned properly, it would be manually tallied and included in the totals or the ballot would be remade and scanned. She added that various folds have previously been tested in the machines in public testing. She encouraged people to observe the process during the public process and explained how the results are checked by the municipal, county, and state before becoming official totals.
Joling thanked her for the information. The email conversation continued the next day with Birk-LaBarge responding to Jolings verbal request while at the public testing.
"During Public Machine Testing today you requested to video the Chief Election Inspectors feeding the test ballots into the tabulator machines. I explained you could not because it was a state statute that prohibited that action."
Birk-LaBarge provided him Wis. Stat. 7.41(1) and the WEC's manual citing pages 81 and 83.
"While you were observing, your consistent challenge of direction and questioning of the Chief Election Inspectors' direction became a distraction and interfered with our orderly process of public testing of our voting equipment therefore, you did receive a warning from me as the Village Clerk having authorization to do such," she continued. "I want to thank you for not continuing on with those distractions and challenges to our Chief Election Inspector."