Sawyer County clerk pushes town clerks to use WisVote, expands searchable public records

County Clerk Elizabeth Klein told the Sawyer County Administration Committee that her office is digitizing county records into searchable PDFs for the public and encouraging town clerks to become certified ‘‘self providers’’ in WisVote so towns can enter their own election data.

Klein said the office is working with several towns and recently refunded a town that paid its MOU fees in advance after that town moved to the hybrid self-provider model. She identified one town by name as "Town of Glen Root" that has moved to that arrangement.

Klein said roughly 14–15 of the county’s 21 towns continue to rely on the county for services they could perform themselves and that training more clerks to use WisVote would improve “election integrity” because local clerks know their voters’ households and life events. "If we could get all the clerks to get that level raised… it’s better for election integrity because the clerks know their own voters," she said.

Klein also said the county has increased public notices on the front page of the county website and began a cooperative notice exchange with LCO that provides professionally designed notices. The office has seen more public notices posted online and is working to make historical county records searchable for public access.

In other administrative details Klein noted seasonal work on marriage licenses, that the last town paid its election fees so that total is final for the period referenced, and that monthly departmental reports show 22 of 31 items for the period were related to the sheriff’s department.

Committee discussion focused on training logistics; Klein said she has emailed clerks and plans to expand training and solicit demonstration of hybrid procedures at a future meeting.

No formal committee action was taken during the clerk’s report.