Wisconsin took one step closer to securing its elections last week after several Republican legislators introduced measures to prohibit the private funding of elections and withdraw the state from the leftist-controlled voter-roll “maintenance” group known as ERIC.
“I am honored to be a supporting author on the constitutional amendment prohibiting outside money from influencing our elections and election processes,” amendment co-sponsor and GOP Rep. Ty Bodden said in a statement. “We all know Zuckerbucks played a terrible role in the 2020 election and that must never be allowed to happen again.”
In recent years, bills attempting to restrict or ban the use of private money in Wisconsin elections have successfully cleared the Republican-controlled General Assembly only to be vetoed by Democrat Gov. Tony Evers. Using the constitutional amendment process permits Republicans to circumvent Evers’ bid to leave Wisconsin’s elections open to private actors and give voters the final say on the matter.
Under the Wisconsin Constitution, if a constitutional amendment proposal is approved by the legislature in two consecutive sessions, it will then go to the voters for final passage. Wisconsin’s General Assembly passed an amendment similar to the one introduced last week that seeks to ban the use of private money in elections.
According to Bodden, the new amendment proposal is aimed at curbing private actors’ interference in the election process. During the 2020 election, nonprofits such as the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) and Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) received hundreds of millions of dollars from
