Wisconsin Senate committees — controlled by Republicans in the majority — are increasingly using paper ballots instead of meeting publicly in person to debate and vote on bills.
A story about the practice appeared in the Feb. 11, 2026 issue of The Cap Times. According to the story:
State senators are now using that practice for most of the pieces of legislation they approve or reject. More than 80% of the Senate’s executive session votes over the last year were conducted on paper, according to a Cap Times analysis.
While paper ballots are allowed, Democratic senators say the practice is bad for transparency. Republicans say it’s efficient.
In the state Legislature, bills move through a standard process to become a law. After they are introduced, majority party leaders assign the bills to a committee.In committee,a bill must first get a public hearing, where residents and others affected by the policy can weigh in. After that, lawmakers serving on the committee vote on the bill in an executive session.
That executive session can be held as a public, in-person meeting, which is typically where the legislators themselves can debate the bill and offer amendments. But Senate rules also allow the committee to vote on the legislation through a paper ballot, which means senators do not meet in person at all and instead have a few hours to fill out a paper slip and turn it in. The votes are then tallied and entered in the legislative record, but that is the only public record from that session.
The Senate’s rulebook states a committee may vote on legislation by ballot as long as it has “lain over” for at least 24 hours. That rule appears to have been adopted in 2009, when Democrats controlled the Senate. Previously, paper ballots were allowed only in cases of emergency.
Out of 91 executive sessions held by Senate committees since January 2025, paper ballots were used in 74 of them, according to a review of committee agendas by the Cap Times.
Senator Kelda Roys, who is among Democrats running for Wisconsin governor, said the practice has “exploded” in recent years. “Historically, paper ballots were only used minimally for things that were truly not controversial, almost ministerial,” she said.
The rate of paper ballot use has steadily increased during at least the last decade. In the 2017-18 legislative session, paper ballots were used in about 38% of executive sessions. That grew to 44% in the 2019-20 session and nearly 70% within two years after that, according to a 2022 story in the Wisconsin Examiner, citing data from the Legislative Council.
Republican Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, who chairs the Senate’s health committee, said paper ballots provide a clear record of the vote in an efficient way and noted that Democrats have used paper ballots while in control of committees in the past.
“No vote can be held without a public hearing, in which citizens and experts provide testimony on legislative proposals,” Cabral-Guevara said in an emailed statement. “I’m far more concerned with what the public has to say to us before a vote than hearing legislators regurgitate talking points.”
Among the bills that divided lawmakers but were decided by paper ballot were one that would ban gender affirming care for minors, one that would have required state employees to work in-person, and another that would establish a sandhill crane hunting season.
“They’re doing things that are unpopular, and they don’t want the public to know about it,” Roys said.
The Cap Times reached out to 13 Senate committee chairs and their clerks, as well as Senate Majority Leader Sen. Devin LeMahieu, for comment. Aside from Sens. Jacque, Cabral-Guevara and Van Wanggaard’s offices, none of the lawmakers or staff members responded by deadline.
