# Wisconsin Elections Commission The six-member bipartisan commission that administers Wisconsin's election statutes and supports the state's 1,851 municipal clerks and 72 county clerks. Its administrator, not the secretary of state, is Wisconsin's chief state election official — the secretary of state's election duties were stripped away decades ago. **Wisconsin has rebuilt this body three times in fifty years**, which makes it the best single illustration of how much churn the "state election office" layer can absorb without any of it being visible on an org chart: an eight-member State Elections Board in 1974, a merged elections-and-ethics Government Accountability Board in 2007, and the split back into a separate six-member Elections Commission in 2015. The current appointment formula is deliberately deadlock-prone: two members appointed by the governor, and one each by the Senate majority leader, Senate minority leader, Assembly speaker, and Assembly minority leader — three Democrats and three Republicans, with no tiebreaker. The administrator's seat produced a structural ruling worth carrying. Administrator Meagan Wolfe's term expired in 2023, and legislative Republicans spent two years attempting to force her replacement. On **February 7, 2025** the Wisconsin Supreme Court held unanimously that the Commission had no duty to reappoint or replace her, because the position was not vacant — a holdover officeholder occupies the seat, so there is nothing to fill. *(Status as of that ruling; not re-verified for September 2026.)* ## The Musk referral (2026) The deadlock-prone design produced a lopsided vote on one question. On **July 10, 2026** the Commission voted **5–1** in closed session that there was probable cause [[Elon Musk]] broke Wisconsin's election-bribery law with a March 2025 post offering $1 million checks to people who voted in the Supreme Court race. It referred two voter complaints to the Brown County district attorney. A special prosecutor, La Crosse County DA Tim Gruenke, declined to charge on August 25, 2026. See [[2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court Election]]. ## See Also - [[2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court Election]] · [[America PAC $1 Million Petition Sweepstakes]] - [[State Election Administration Tree]] — the board/commission model - [[North Carolina State Board of Elections]] — the same model, restructured a different way - [[Election Denialism]] · [[How a Midterm Election Is Certified]]