The Wisconsin Legislature adjourned its 2026 regular session on March 19. During that time, lawmakers sent three election-related bills to Gov. Tony Evers (D), who signed two of them and vetoed one.

On April 8, Evers vetoed AB 595, which would have required the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) to remove ineligible voters from the voter rolls. Currently, officials designate those voters as ineligible but do not remove them from the voter registration list.

The bill also would have required the Legislative Audit Bureau to conduct an audit of the voter rolls to flag potential noncitizens, and it would have required the WEC to enter into data-sharing agreements with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, the Office of Vital Records, and the Department of Corrections to match voter registration information with driver’s license and death records. 

Finally, AB 595 would have required the WEC to rule on the merits of any complaints that the WEC itself has violated the Help America Vote Act. The commission has previously held that it cannot rule on complaints brought against itself.

The state Assembly approved AB 595 on a voice vote on Nov. 19, 2025. The state Senate approved the bill on March 17, 2026, with all 18 Republicans in favor and all 15 Democrats opposed. Wisconsin has a divided government, with Republicans holding majorities in the state Senate and Assembly.

In his veto message, Evers said he vetoed the bill for several reasons, including “the additional burden that could be placed on citizens to provide documentary proof of citizenship after they have already been lawfully registered to vote. Under the bill, a citizen could be flagged as a noncitizen and then be required to go out of their way to prove their citizenship or be erroneously stripped of their voting rights.”

In testimony on the bill, Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R) said, “AB 595 does not solve all our problems, but it is a great step in the right direction in making sure that all Wisconsinites - Democrat, Republican, and Independent - are comfortable with the way our elections are run and are confident that they are fair regardless of which party wins.”

Evers signed two other election-related bills:

• AB 223, which requires a petition circulator to be a qualified elector of Wisconsin, except for petition circulators for the office of the president and vice president of the United States. 
• AB 374, which makes changes to deadlines for canvassing the results of a presidential election to comply with federal deadlines for selecting presidential electors and providing the election results to Congress.

Wisconsin enacted three election-related bills in 2025, two in 2024, and six in 2023. Evers vetoed two election-related bills in 2025, four in 2024, and three in 2023.