Former Wisconsin governors urge residents to vote in new public service announcements

With four weeks left until Election Day, Wisconsinites have already been inundated with campaign ads from candidates for state and national races.

But several nonpartisan and bipartisan groups focused on promoting election security are hoping to break up the barrage with an encouragement for everyone to cast their ballot this November.

LeaderEthics, WisAct and Keep Our Republic released a series of public service announcements on Monday. The video and radio messages urge residents to disregard political misinformation or scare tactics and have confidence in exercising their right to vote.

The announcements feature former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and former Republican Gov. Scott McCallum, as well as Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Megan Wolfe and former leaders of the Universities of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Technical College System. 

“We need to remind people that it’s important as citizens to make sure that they don’t miss the opportunity to vote and it’s not partisan,” said Lee Rasch, founder of LeaderEthics. “The best thing we could have in this election year is a good, solid turnout, regardless of who wins.”

Rasch said the groups hope to counteract the large number of negative ads that have been running for months in the state. While parties try to fire up supporters by running attacks on the opposing candidate, Rasch said the back and forth of negative messages can discourage independent voters from wanting to participate.

But he said getting air time for the radio and TV messages will be difficult because campaigns and PACs are running so many ads.

“We’ve been trying to make a personal appeal (to broadcast stations) that what we’re hearing from listeners and viewers, they’re tired of the political ads, and they would view these as a refreshing alternative,” Rasch said, adding that they also hope to run the messages on social media.

The groups hope hearing from former leaders of state institutions will help rebuild faith in the election process, especially because the presidential race is once again expected to be close in Wisconsin.

After the last presidential election in 2020, election clerks across the country experienced threats and harassment driven by former President Donald Trump’s unsupported claims of voter fraud. Trump has continued to repeat those claims in this year’s race.

David Haynes is the Democratic co-lead for WisAct, a bipartisan network focused on rebuilding public trust that is also led by McCallum. Haynes said the state has continued to see instances of threats against elected officials and agency leaders. 

While he believes it’s a relatively small number of people behind the intimidation, Haynes hopes the new public service announcements will speak to the majority of Wisconsinites who he says want a more civil path forward.