Philip Ejercito
Scott McDonell (right) faces a challenge from Karen McKim (left) for Dane County clerk.
Karen McKim remembers the moment she became concerned about the way Dane County counts its votes.
She was at a statewide meeting for a grassroots political group in 2011, where members were brainstorming priorities. The list included a number of predictable topics — mining regulations, gerrymandering. But then a recently retired municipal clerk stood up and suggested something McKim and others at the meeting hadn’t previously considered — that Wisconsin’s electronic voting machines could be at risk because results are not verified before the results are declared final.
“[A] cash register is reconciled at the end of the night, but our voting machines aren’t,” says McKim, who went on to help found the Wisconsin Election Integrity Action Team in 2012. Over the last four years, the group has conducted citizen audits of election results and advocated for transparency in post-election vote-counting procedures both in Dane County and statewide. Now, she’s mounting a bid to unseat Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, arguing that the incumbent has not done enough to verify elections.
McDonell, however, says McKim’s criticisms are unfounded, calling Dane County’s election procedures the “gold standard” of integrity. Dane County’s voting machines are brand new, making them the most accurate and secure technology on the market. Plus, Dane County is the only county in the state that conducts post-election audits — a measure McDonell implemented in February for the spring primary. The results have not been released publicly yet, but he says the audit showed “the numbers came out exactly.”
“That provides a level of transparency that’s unparalleled,” he says.
McDonell, a former Dane County Board chairman, gained notice during his first term for being one of the first clerks in the state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and for his voter ID outreach and educational efforts. He points out that overseeing elections is just one of many duties that a county clerk performs. “It’s obvious that [McKim] is running a single-issue campaign,” he says.
But to McKim, who has branded herself in campaign literature as the “count-ing clerk,” McDonell’s high level of confidence in the current vote-counting system highlights the very reason she’s concerned.
“The fact that he thinks it isn’t an issue is the issue,” she says. “I would rather have elections officials who are skeptical.”
Beyond their differing approaches to post-election audits, the candidates share many of the same views: Both support same-sex marriage, both have criticized Republican-led voter ID laws on the grounds that the requirements disenfranchise some voters.
McKim, who is running as an independent in the Nov. 8 election, has been endorsed by a number of local progressive grassroots activists and national election integrity activists, including former director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Mike McCabe. McDonell is endorsed by U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, two of the highest-profile Democrats in the state.
If re-elected, McDonell hopes to continue his work in voter advocacy and education and plans to implement new training methods for election workers and invest in new technology, such as electronic poll books, to speed the voting process.
“Over the next four years,” McDonell says, “I’m going to focus on making it faster and easier to vote.”
