Commission orders former clerk to conduct legally required second drawing in any future primary
Following a flurry of election complaints filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission before and after the April 1, 2025 Spring Election in the Village of Arena, the WEC ruled nearly a year later — on March 25, 2026 — that the village’s April 1 ballot was unlawfully arranged for the village trustee race after the previous clerk admitted she did not conduct the second random drawing of lots required by state statute following the February 18, 2025 Spring Primary.
In a five-page decision letter signed by all six commissioners, the Commission found probable cause that former Village of Arena Clerk/Treasurer DaNean Naeger violated Wis. Stat. §§ 5.58(1b)(cm), 5.60(1)(b) and 5.60(5)(ar) by failing to conduct a second drawing of lots for ballot arrangement for village trustee following the Spring Primary, and ordered Naeger to “conduct a second drawing of name for ballot order whenever a primary is necessary” in the future. The Commission separately dismissed an allegation that the original January 9, 2025 drawing was not random, finding the claim of malfeasance “too speculative” to support probable cause.
These proceedings are civil in nature and apply to election officials’ conduct in the capacity of their position and procedures followed. The decision resolves Becca Uminowicz v. DaNean Naeger (EL 25-29), one of three Election Official Abuse or Violation (§ 5.06) complaints filed against Naeger over her administration of the 2025 spring election cycle. The other two remain pending. The complaint was filed by then-Village Trustee Becca Raven Uminowicz on March 21, 2025; Naeger filed her initial response April 8, 2025 — the same evening she submitted her resignation as clerk/treasurer.
The Jan. 9 drawing and the records trail
The WEC ruling concerns a January 9, 2025 drawing of lots in which Naeger, with then-Village Public Works Superintendent Richard Meili and then-public works employee Troy McKeown serving as witnesses, determined the candidate order for both the February 18, 2025 Spring Primary trustee race and the April 1, 2025 Spring Election village president race in a single 8:30 a.m. session at Village Hall. The session was publicly noticed in a one-page notice signed by Naeger and dated January 7, 2025.
The drawing produced a Spring Primary trustee ballot ordered: Tara Hill, Kevin Reimann, Brittany Carney, Kathy Stoltz, Steve Wilkinson, Joseph Hipsky and Don Helt — and a Spring Election village president ballot listing Stoltz first and Paul Pustina second. The official drawing record, prepared by Naeger and signed by Naeger, Meili and McKeown, included a printed instruction stating: “In the event of a Primary, omitted candidates shall be removed and order renumbered for the Spring Election.”
Following the Feb. 18 Spring Primary, in which Kevin Reimann — son of then-Village President Kate Reimann — was the lowest vote-getter and was eliminated, Naeger did not conduct a second drawing. Instead, in keeping with the printed instruction on the drawing record, she removed Kevin Reimann’s name and renumbered the remaining six candidates in the same order on the April 1 ballot: Hill, Carney, Stoltz, Wilkinson, Hipsky, Helt.
In a March 11, 2025 records request to the village, Valley Sentinel requested all records documenting the drawings for both the primary and Spring Election ballots, including the date, time, location, public notice, witnesses, method, final order of candidates and any correspondence regarding ballot order. The next day Naeger sent over the official drawing record, which outlined the order above. Knowing that the statute required a second drawing to reorder candidates for the general election after the primary, Valley Sentinel requested records regarding the drawing for the April 1, election. On March 17, Naeger responded by email: “There are no further public records for your request.”
Uminowicz filed her verified complaint four days later, on March 21. The complaint contended that the lack of a second drawing was “an apparent direct violation of Wisconsin election law,” and additionally argued — based on the contention that Hill, Kevin Reimann, Carney and Stoltz are “perceived as supportive of the current administration” at the time, while Wilkinson, Hipsky and Helt are “perceived as opposition candidates” — that the original drawing’s outcome had a 2.86% probability (1 in 35) of occurring by chance for the trustee race, and a 1.43% probability (1 in 70) when paired with Stoltz being drawn first for president. The complaint further stated “if the clerk claims that she did indeed draw lots a second time and got that identical ordering, the probability decreases to 1 in 50,400 odds (or about ≈0.00198%) that all of those things would happen purely by random chance.”
The complaint requested 12 forms of relief, including conducting a second drawing prior to April 1, reprinting ballots if feasible, posting WEC-approved notices that the ballot order was subject to a pending complaint, temporarily barring Naeger from election-administration duties, on-site WEC observation on Election Day, delaying certification of contested results, and ordering a special election if the violation were “so severe that it calls the election outcome into question.”
Naeger’s response, the ‘manual’ defense
In her April 8 response Naeger conceded that no second drawing took place but denied any willful or intentional conduct. She wrote that she had reviewed the August 2024 Wisconsin Election Administration Manual and read subpart “a” of point 2 of the “Determining Ballot Order of Candidate Names” section, which addresses initial drawings, but did not see subpart “b” on the next page, which addresses second drawings following primaries.
“This was an inadvertent oversight and not done with any intent of any kind,” Naeger wrote. “This was my first local primary election of this kind and so I did not realize a new ballot order was needed.”
Naeger’s response further argued that by the time she was alerted to the issue, on March 11, it was too late to remedy: she had submitted the ballot order form on Feb. 25, received the Spring Election ballots from Iowa County Clerk Megan Currie on March 6, and mailed absentee ballots on March 10. On the question of impact, Naeger wrote that ballot placement had no effect on the outcome because, in both the Spring Primary and the Spring Election, “the top three vote getters were once again the bottom three spots on the ballot.”
In her April 25 reply, Uminowicz challenged the “first local primary” claim by listing prior Naeger clerkships in Rewey, Dodgeville, Blue Mounds and Monticello, and noted that Naeger has held a Wisconsin Certified Municipal Clerk designation since 2008 in addition to a Certified Municipal Clerk designation.
On April 26, 2025 — three weeks after Naeger’s response was due — Naeger submitted additional materials to the Commission, including a notarized statement from Meili dated 04/26/2025 that said, in part: “…I and another person drew the names out of a bowl and handed them to DaNean Naeger to write down. I do not know the exact date but I physically drew the names for the 2025 primary/election.”
Naeger also submitted minutes from a November 16, 2022 Village of Monticello Village Board meeting referencing a 2020 audit completed during her tenure as that village’s clerk/treasurer, in which then-Monticello Village President Robert LaBarre described the audit as having been “done on the recommendation of the former president and board’s suspicions at that time.”The Commission accepted Naeger’s late-filed materials, citing its discretion under Wis. Admin. Code, which contains no penalty for late filings. Uminowicz, who submitted a second reply on June 4, 2025, did not object to the late filings.
Commission’s findings
The WEC’s analysis adopted Naeger’s concession on the second drawing but rejected her timing-based mitigation as a basis to avoid a finding of probable cause.
“The Respondent admits that she did not conduct the second drawing,” the decision states. “As such, Respondent’s failure to conduct a second drawing was contrary to law.”
On the separate allegation that the Jan. 9 drawing itself was not random, the Commission found insufficient evidence to support probable cause. “Neither Wis. Stat. § 5.60(1)(b) — nor the rest of Chapter 5 — details how a clerk should draw lots for ballot arrangement, and says only that the ‘arrangement of names of all candidates on the ballot . . . shall be determined by . . . the drawing of lots,'” the decision states. “It is entirely possible that the random drawing of lots resulted in a ballot arrangement that placed candidates perceived as supportive of the village administration at the top of the ballot, though the Commission has not attempted to evaluate the positions of the different candidates.”
The Commission further noted Uminowicz’s allegation that the trustee and president drawings were conducted simultaneously — which, the decision states, “if true, this would be contrary to law because drawing of lots should be conducted individually for each office” — but found insufficient evidence to support probable cause on that point as well.
The decision was approved unanimously at the WEC’s March 25, 2026 open meeting following a presentation of the staff memo by Staff Attorney Brandon Hunzicker. Commissioner Don Millis moved to adopt the proposed decision letter in full; Commissioner Robert Spindell seconded; the motion carried 6-0, with Chair Ann S. Jacobs and Commissioners Marge Bostelmann, Millis, Carrie Riepl, Spindell and Mark L. Thomsen all voting in favor. At Chair Jacobs’ suggestion, the Commission also directed staff to send the Village of Arena clerk a link to the statutory deadline calendar on the Commission’s website.
Other 5.06 complaints
Two other § 5.06 complaints filed against Naeger technically remain pending before the Commission, although their practical remedies are limited.
Becca Uminowicz v. DaNean Naeger, et al. (EL 25-55), filed April 7, 2025, alleges procedural violations in the conduct of the April 1 election itself, including inadequate accessible voting accommodations, the village running out of official ballots, the use of improvised photocopied ballots, premature dismantling of polling station signage and tabulation equipment, improperly noticed canvass meetings and statistical irregularities between hand-counted and machine-tabulated ballots.
Due to the village’s roughly 66% voter turnout in the April 1 election, the village ran out of official ballots, requiring Naeger to copy and print improvised ballots that were not accepted by the voting machine and required hand-counting. The complaint states that approximately 15% of cast ballots were hand counted.
The complaint also notes that Stoltz, who was simultaneously running for re-election as trustee and for election as village president, received 60 fewer votes in the trustee race than in the presidential race — a discrepancy the complaint calls “highly unusual” for local elections. In the presidential race, hand-counted ballots — which sequestered any ballots containing write-ins as well as the photocopied ballots the machine could not accept — gave Pustina 34 votes to Stoltz’s 24, a 17.2% lead for Pustina. After the machine-tabulated votes were read into the record by Naeger, Stoltz had 189 votes to Pustina’s 174 — a 4.2% lead for Stoltz, and an overall swing of 21.4% from the hand-count results.
“In the context of questionable ballot administration, the simplest explanation might be tampering, mistakes, or misapplied procedures,” the EL 25-55 complaint states. “The prior 5.06 complaint against the Clerk for reusing primary order suggests a willingness to circumvent mandated processes.”
Paul Pustina v. DaNean Naeger (EL 25-56), filed April 8, 2025, addresses Pustina’s attempt to petition for a recount of the village president race. Under state statute, a recount petition must be filed within three business days of the meeting of the municipal board of canvassers — a deadline that fell on the Friday following the election. The complaint alleges Naeger was not at Village Hall that Friday, requiring Pustina to wait until the following Monday, when Naeger rejected the petition as untimely.
Naeger filed responses with the WEC disputing both complaints.
The remedies available through the EL 25-56 complaint are likely to be limited regardless of the WEC’s eventual ruling. Naeger resigned April 8, 2025; Stoltz submitted her resignation as Village President at 7:52 a.m. on April 15, 2025, hours after assuming office. Pustina was subsequently appointed to the village president seat by the newly-elected board in mid-April 2025 and is currently serving a term that ends in April 2027.
The Village of Arena Board has since hired a new clerk, Kathleen Helt, and a new deputy clerk, RoxAnne Amble. Interim clerk Robin Maier is staying on part-time to train the new staff.
Editors’ Note: Legal Editor Gary Ernest Grass, esq. advised the complainant in connection with replies submitted to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Any such consultation is given in a capacity separate from the newspaper and does not affect the content of the story or its editing. Grass did not participate in the writing or editing of this story.
