The Wisconsin Senate has voted to fire the state’s top elections official as misinformation about the 2020 election influences election administration in the battleground state.
An audio recording shows how the Trump campaign in Wisconsin knew he had lost but quickly began promoting the lie of a stolen election.But numerous reviews have found that the 2020 election in Wisconsin was fair and the results were accurate.
by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, an outcome that has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review, and multiple state and federal lawsuits. Election observers have voiced concerns that replacing Wolfe with a less experienced administrator or continuing to dispute her position ahead of the 2024 contest could create greater instability in a high-stakes presidential race where election workers expect to face unrelenting pressure, harassment and threats. “Wisconsin Republicans’ attempt to illegally fire Wisconsin’s elections administrator without cause today shows they are continuing to escalate efforts to sow distrust and disinformation about our elections, denigrate our clerks, poll workers, and election administrators, and undermine basic tenets of our democracy, including the peaceful transfer of power,” Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement. At Evers’ request, Kaul sued GOP legislative leaders and asked a judge to rule that the Senate’s vote has no legal effect and that Wolfe will remain in charge of the elections commission. Meanwhile, Republicans introduced a resolution calling on the elections commission to appoint an interim administrator to replace her. “The state Senate has blatantly ignored Wisconsin law in order to put its stamp of approval on baseless attacks against elections,” Kaul said. “[Wolfe] remains the administrator. The court, I’m very confident, will confirm that.” The bipartisan elections commission deadlocked in June on a vote to nominate Wolfe for a second four-year term. Three Republicans voted to nominate her and three Democrats abstained in the hopes of preventing a nomination from proceeding to the Senate for confirmation. Senate rejection would normally carry the effect of firing her, but without a four-vote majority nominating Wolfe, a recent state Supreme Court ruling appears to allow her to stay in office indefinitely as a holdover. Senate Republicans in June pushed ahead with forcing a vote despite not receiving a nomination from the commission. LeMahieu said he interpreted the commission’s 3-0 vote as a unanimous nomination. The Legislature’s nonpartisan attorneys and Kaul have both contested that interpretation, saying the law is clear that an elections administrator must be nominated by at least four commissioners. Wolfe did not attend a Senate committee hearing on her reappointment last month, citing a letter from Kaul saying “there is no question” that she remains head of the elections agency. That hearing instead became a platform for some of the most prominent members of Wisconsin’s election denialism movement to repeat widely debunked claims about the 2020 election. “It’s hard to believe we’re still at a place where those now very well analyzed and debunked claims about our system seem to still be driving decisions,” Wolfe said Thursday.
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