Former Kronenwetter clerk found in violation of state statute

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Monday resolved several complaints against a former local clerk.

Bobbi Birk-LaBarge is the former clerk for the Village of Kronenwetter. She resigned her position a year ago, citing “ongoing, negative, and deeply troubling behavior” from a village trustee. 

The four complaints against LaBarge allege that the village’s former clerk didn’t follow state statute when selecting election inspectors.

That trustee is one of the people that filed a complaint. 

Three of the four complaints allege LaBarge hired election inspectors that weren’t approved by the village board, leaving out two Republican inspectors and creating an imbalance in party affiliation. 

“The main distinction is that each party is entitled to its share of the election inspectors,” said Brandon Hunzicker, the Wisconsin Election Commission’s lawyer.

He spoke at an elections commission hearing in Madison on Monday. 

“I would say that this statute and this process is very, very complicated, and we’ve tried to interpret it so that one party can’t freeze the other party  out by just not appointing very many people,” Hunzicker said.

The complaint alleges that these inspectors were left out of those hired to serve in the 2024- 2025 election cycle. 

“I think it was an abuse of discretion to not contact two individuals who were appointed Republican election inspectors who were simply not included in any part of that process,” Hunzicker said.

A fourth complaint also alleges that LaBarge had an individual sign in as an election observer during a public test of election equipment, and prevented the individual from filming the test. 

LaBarge alleges the observer was creating a “general disturbance” during the test because they wanted to film it.

“I think that if this individual was causing a disturbance in the public test, the clerk still could have taken action against that, just could not have applied the observer standards,” Hunzicker said.

The commission found that she violated election procedures under each of the four complaints.