Madison mayor proposes $1,000 fantastic for harassing election officers

(The Middle Sq.) – Lower than one month earlier than Wisconsin’s subsequent election, Madison’s mayor is proposing a brand new ban on harassing election employees.

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway unveiled a brand new ordinance Tuesday that might make it a criminal offense to “interact in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or in any other case disorderly conduct beneath circumstances during which such conduct tends to trigger or provoke a disturbance” in opposition to ballot employees or native election managers.

Fines would begin at $300, and are capped at $1,000.

Rhodes-Conway says the $1,000 fantastic “displays the hurt to the election system, along with the impact of such conduct on election officers.”

The brand new ordinance additionally permits Madison to press for a fantastic for every occasion of harassment.

“After the 2020 election and the assault on the U.S. Capitol, election officers in Madison and Dane County and in cities and villages throughout the state have confronted threats and harassment for merely doing their jobs,” the mayor stated in a press release. “By introducing these ordinance adjustments, all the Metropolis of Madison, our police and our prosecutors are standing up and saying ‘sufficient.’ We're going to do all the things we are able to to guard our clerks and ballot employees from threats of violence and harassment.”

Rhodes-Conway didn't level to any particular examples of harassment that native election officers have obtained whereas doing their jobs.

The proposed ordinance can be slightly brief on specifics of simply what constitutes harassment.

“With intent to harass, annoy, or offend one other, sends a telecommunication message to a telecommunication machine and makes use of any violent, abusive, indecent, or profane language or picture, or every other message which tends to trigger or provoke a disturbance; or whereas inebriated, in a public place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or in any other case disorderly conduct beneath circumstances during which such conduct tends to trigger or provoke a disturbance,” is how the ordinance defines a harassment violation.

Rhodes-Conway says she has help from a lot of Madison’s metropolis council members. Her ordinance is on subsequent week’s agenda.

Voters in Wisconsin head to the polls on August 9.