by Benjamin Yount
Early voting has begun in Wisconsin, and so has the Republican election watch.
Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Paul Farrow said Thursday that the party has increased its focus on both poll workers and poll watchers to make sure that there are eyeballs watching to vote count this year.
“In this cycle, we’ve submitted over 5,000 names across the state,” Farrow told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber. “This is the first line for us. People out there who actually took the training. They are the inspectors. They’re making sure that the polls are working properly. That the clerks are being held to the statutes, not the WEC decisions that were coming out.”
Farrow said election integrity is a huge issue for the Republican Party and for Republican voters.
The focus, Farrow added, is on the Democratic strongholds in the state.
“The big challenge is the big targeted areas, the Milwaukee and Dane counties,” Farrow explained. “Those are the ones that have so many ballots that they cannot run them all through. That’s where the central count is so important, that we have observers there.”
Farrow said poll workers and poll watchers are already working because voters are already voting.
Early voting in Wisconsin began last week.
Farrow said thousands of people have already voted early and absentee, but he doesn’t expect an overwhelming crush of absentee ballots this year.
“The typical numbers for absentee ballots this time around are more in-line with 2016 than 2020,” Farrow said. “You remember that in 2020 we saw almost 2 million absentee ballots. This time around we’re looking at 400,000 or 500,000.”
Farrow said the signs are there for a red wave election in Wisconsin.
The latest Marquette Law School Poll shows the races for U.S. Senate and governor are both tied.
Farrow is also looking at the state legislature, where he says it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Republicans will grab a veto-proof majority on Election Day.
“I think the Senate is much closer than the Assembly right now. They need 22 seats to have that two-thirds majority, they have 20. Picking up two in the world that we’re in looks very doable for them,” Farrow explained. “[In the Assembly] they think we’ll be able to flip about three or four more seats, which would give us that two-thirds majority.”
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Benjamin Yount is a contributor to The Center Square.
Photo “Paul Farrow” by Nicoledariz. CC BY-SA 4.0. Background Photo “Voting Booths” by Tim Evanson. CC BY-SA 2.0.
