Voting rights advocates call for removal of Election Commissioner Spindell

A crowd gathers at the Wisconsin Black Historical Society to discuss voting rights and access. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Voting rights advocates gathered at the Wisconsin Black Historical Society in Milwaukee on Monday night, calling for the resignation of Robert Spindell, a conservative member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Controversy has lingered around Spindell who, after the 2022 election, celebrated a decline in turnout in the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods as a benefit to Republican candidates. Earlier this month , Spendell attempted to brush back criticisms from members of All Voting is Local and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign by saying, “There is no white Republican who has done more for the Black community than me.”

Spindell’s comments, and his association as one of 10 Wisconsin Republicans who submitted false electoral ballots for former President Donald Trump after he lost Wisconsin led voting-rights groups in Wisconsin to called for Spindell’s resignation. On Monday evening, a crowd of several dozen joined organizers from Souls To The Polls, Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC), Voces de la Frontera, the African American Roundtable and others to repeat the demands.

Rev. Greg Lewis, executive director of Souls to the Polls. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

“We are here today because we believe that a guy who goes around bragging about keeping you from expressing yourself in our politics should be gone if he works for the state Elections Commission,” said Rev. Greg Lewis, executive director of Souls to the Polls, delivering his remarks in a fiery sermon-like tone. “What kind of worm would work for the state Elections Commission and then come to my community and tell my folks not to vote? What kind of worm would do something like that? It’s dirty, it’s underhanded, and we’re not going to put up with that anymore!”

In an election cycle where activists warn that Trump threatens to install a dictatorship if he is returned to the White House, Lewis feels the vote is the most powerful tool for minority communities. “I have a vote, and the vote is the most democratic weapon we have,” said Lewis. “It is the most neutralizing weapon we have for folks who really have powerful resources. The vote is the greatest of all equalizers.”

Protecting the integrity of the vote was at the forefront of conversation Monday evening. In December, as part of a settlement agreement , Spindell and the other nine Trump fake electors were required to acknowledge that Biden won the 2020 election, retract all their filings, and not take part in the 2024 election cycle as electors nor any other election where Trump is on the ballot. Despite facing dozens of criminal charges, as well as losing civil lawsuits totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, Trump remains the  frontrunner in the contest for  the Republican presidential nomination later this year.

Angela Lang, executive director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC) in Milwaukee. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

“We know that one press conference isn’t going to do it, but we know that a sustained effort does,” said Christine Nuemann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera and its organizing arm Voces de la Frontera Action. Neumann-Ortiz painted Spindell as  antithetical to any spirit of election integrity, fairness or inclusiveness due to the statements he’s made and to his proximity to a wider effort to disenfranchise Black and Hispanic voters.

“The fact that he has openly acknowledged through his settlement that he was involved in part of the legal strategy to steal the elections, as a fake elector…This guy has no place on the [elections] commission,” said Nuemann-Ortiz. Each of the speakers Monday evening shared the same  sentiment.

Corrine Rosen, state director of the Wisconsin Working Families Party, said that Wisconsinites deserve to know that their votes count. “We have the right to make sure that our elections are fair, they are free from harassment, and they are honest,” said Rosen. “Commissioner Spindell needs to be removed from the Wisconsin Elections Commission now. His support for fake electors was an attack on all of our democratic rights, and he cannot be trusted to run our elections fairly.”

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera and Voces de la Frontera Action! (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Angela Lang, executive director of BLOC, recalled calling for Spindell’s removal over a year ago. “His role is to uphold democracy and the integrity of our elections, his actions say otherwise,” she said. “And if these two things aren’t enough, this man keeps playing in our face.” Lang questioned  what Spindell has done for the Black community to justify anointing himself as a white Republican who’s done more for the Black community than any other. Lang said that community organizers will match Spindell’s  boldness. “Our communities deserve better, and we won’t stop until he’s gone.”

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is now president of Power to the Polls, also appeared at the Monday night event. “The right to vote, the right to organize, the right to make our voices heard, [are] perhaps our most fundamental rights,” said Barnes. “The right to have free and fair elections where, whether we win or lose, we accept the will of the voters and we uphold our democracy.”

Former Lt. Gov. and current president of Power to the Polls Mandela Barnes. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Over the last couple of years, Barnes said he’s worked with people who’ve struggled towards that vision and witnessed the result of efforts to thwart it. He brought up a short documentary that aired Sunday on 60 Minutes focusing on the fake elector plot in Wisconsin. One of the fake electors, attorney and former chair of the state Republican Party Andrew Hitt, said he feared for his family’s safety from Trump supporters if he did not take part in the plan.

“Well if you are supporting a person who’s putting your family in jeopardy, that means that you have lost all sense of respect, all sense of who you are. I would never campaign if somebody’s putting my family’s life in jeopardy.” Barnes added, “These people will stop at nothing to maintain power, to keep people down, and keep up this voter suppression, and keep fighting against working families and working people. And that’s why we got to show up together, like we’ve never shown up before.”

The post Voting rights advocates call for removal of Election Commissioner Spindell appeared first on Wisconsin Examiner .