Polling commissioner responds to voter suppression allegations in Milwaukee amid calls for resignation

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MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — A Republican on the Wisconsin Elections Commission isn’t backing down from comments that many voting rights groups view as voter suppression.

Commissioner Bob Spindell emailed voters Dec. 16 touting Republican efforts to reduce voter turnout in Milwaukee’s minority communities.

Spindell is also chairman of the state’s Republican Party’s 4th Congressional District. WEC commissioners are political figures, they are not meant to be non-partisan. He faces outrage for post-election comments about why fewer black and Hispanic voters voted in November.

Spindell said Thursday, “Stats are stats: in the city of Milwaukee, 37,000 votes down.”

Most of those votes were in black and Hispanic communities, according to Spindell’s post-election email that detailed Republican efforts throughout the election cycle.

Spindell wrote that the Republican Party was “particularly proud of how the City of Milwaukee’s gross vote dropped from 74% to 63% of registered voters – 37,000 fewer total votes than in 2018.”

Excerpt from email from Wisconsin GOP 4th Congressional District Chairman Bob Spindell, December 16, 2022

In an interview, Spindell defended the email, saying, “If these people decide ‘I’m not going to vote Republican, but I’m not going to vote Democrat like I usually do’, that, in my way of thinking, is a positive event.”

He wrote a follow-up email on Jan. 2 that credited a “well-thought-out multi-faceted plan” for the “decline in Democratic votes in the city.”

Excerpt from email from Wisconsin GOP 4th Congressional District Chairman Bob Spindell, January 2, 2023

Voting rights groups say this is evidence of coordinated voter suppression.

Sam Liebert is the Wisconsin State Director for the voting rights group All Voting Is Local. He said, “I had to shake my head and read it several times.”

In a statement, All Voting Is Local called Spindell’s comments “blatant” and “the antithesis of what true democracy is.” Liebert said voter suppression takes many forms: citing recent court rulings banning drop boxes as an example.

The WEC staff members who implement commission decisions are not political, although the commissioners are. Still, Liebert said, “There’s also a time and a place for people like that not to be in a position making such crucial decisions about our elections in Wisconsin.”

The nonprofit Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, or BLOC, said Spindell’s comments were “incredibly disturbing” but not surprising.

The BLOC released a statement that read, “It is incredibly racist to brag about lowering turnout for blacks and browns,” continuing “it is also unacceptable that these comments and opinions are held by an election official. “.

BLOC statement in response to Bob Spindell emails

But Spindell said he’s proud of the inroads Republicans have made in black and Hispanic communities, adding in the interview, “And we’re not stopping. We’re going to keep it going all year.”

Spindell said he has no plans to step down despite calls to do so from many voting rights groups.

Sam Liebert said All Voting Is Local is talking with its partners in the voting rights community about possible steps that can be taken.

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