Robin Vos claims widespread fraud, but can’t decertify, after meeting with election skeptics | Govt-and-politics
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos met with election skeptics Wednesday and afterward stood firm on his position that the 2020 election can’t be decertified, but he voiced a baseless claim that there was widespread fraud.
“There are some people who think that the Legislature has a unilateral ability to overturn the election,” Vos, R-Rochester, said after the meeting. “We do not.”
Vos added that even conservative constitutional experts said the Legislature can’t decertify the 2020 presidential election.
“I think there was widespread fraud, and I think we are going to see more and more data that comes out” under the investigation by former state Supreme Court Justice and GOP-appointed special counsel Michael Gableman, Vos continued.
Vos on Wednesday met with advocates for decertifying President Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin, hours before he and the state Senate’s top Republican were to discuss election laws with county GOP leaders.
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The morning meeting was not open to the public.
Vos told The Associated Press he was also inviting those who believe the 2020 election cannot be decertified to discuss it along with advocates for decertification on Wednesday. Experts and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have described decertification as a legal and constitutional impossibility — and something Vos has staunchly opposed, despite growing pressure from supporters of former President Donald Trump.
In response to Vos meeting with the skeptics, Rep. Lisa Subeck, D-Madison, said Vos wants to have it both ways, casting doubt on election results while asserting that he can’t help overturn them.
“While he acknowledges there is no legal grounds for decertification, Vos perpetuates the Big Lie by not putting an immediate end to Gableman’s sham of an investigation and by holding meetings with conspiracy theorists who refuse to accept that Joe Biden is our president and won Wisconsin fair and square,” she said.
Rep. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, said Vos’ false claims of widespread fraud are one of the reasons Wisconsinites lack confidence in elections.
“He should be clear about whether or not he would pursue decertification if it was legal,” he continued.
After the meeting, Vos also took a jab at Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has said he won’t sign any legislation that would make voting harder.
“We now need to have an attorney general and a governor who will sign legislation and fight with us to make sure that the election in 2022 and 2024 is fair,” Vos said.
Asked to leave
Some decertification proponents were not invited to the meeting, including state Rep. Timothy Ramthun, R-Campbellsport, a gubernatorial candidate who entered the Capitol meeting room on Wednesday, and then minutes later left.
Special counsel Michael Gableman’s “Second Interim Investigative Report On the Apparatus & Procedures of the Wisconsin Elections System.”
On his way out, Ramthun said Vos asked him not to participate.
“This is what I’ve been dealing with now for 17 months,” he said. “Obstruction on top of obstruction to do the right thing.”
Vos disciplined Ramthun earlier this year by removing his lone staff member, but not for Ramthun’s comments about who won the state’s 2020 election. Rather, the removal of Ramthun’s staffer stemmed from his false accusations that Vos had signed a deal with attorneys for former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to authorize absentee ballot drop boxes, Vos’ office said.
Returning about a half-hour later, Ramthun questioned why the press wasn’t allowed in the closed-door meeting.
“I really think you should be in there to witness what’s going on,” he told reporters.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” he continued. “I’m focused on truth. And I need closure for myself and for my state and for my nation. This is a question about our republic.”
Under pressure
A recount and court decisions have affirmed that Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes. A review by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau as well as the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty found no evidence of widespread fraud and multiple court rulings have also found no evidence of irregularities.
“I think there’s people in that room that were involved that don’t want to see closure on this as why they’ve been obstructing all along,” Ramthun continued. He added that Vos was among a long list of people obstructing the effort to decertify the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin.
Vos has been under pressure from Trump and other Republicans who support the false claim that the election was stolen and say Vos is not doing enough, including decertifying Biden’s win.
Trump said last week that he was “confident that Robin will exercise his moral duty” and follow up on Gableman’s finding, including dissolving the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission. Vos has said he does not support that.
Trump also has pushed for decertification, but Vos and other Republican leaders have repeatedly said that would not be done, citing opinions from the Legislature’s nonpartisan attorneys who have said such a move is illegal.
Election skeptics
After the meeting, election skeptic Jefferson Davis led an address to a crowd featuring dozens of supporters carrying signs, American flags and pamphlets doubting what happened in the 2020 election. Included in that crowd were Ramthun, as well as state Rep. Chuck Wichgers, R-Muskego, whom Davis called courageous for being in attendance.
Among other things, Davis told the crowd that representatives from the election skeptic organization True the Vote would “drop a bomb” proving the existence of widespread fraud at an Assembly elections committee meeting next Thursday. None of the many informational hearings coming before legislative committees has led to any finding of widespread fraud.
At a recent hearing, Gableman claimed 100% of nursing home residents in Dane and Milwaukee counties voted in 2020, insinuating that their votes were somehow cast fraudulently. A Wisconsin State Journal review found no evidence to corroborate that claim, finding only one Dane County nursing home where all 12 registered voters cast cast a ballot, and 42% to 91% of registered voters in other facilities casting ballots.
Guests attend a press conference highlighting widely disproven claims of election fraud.
To date, only 24 people out of nearly 3.3 million who cast ballots have been charged with election fraud in Wisconsin. Trump’s own attorney general has said there was no widespread fraud.
With no evidence supporting widespread fraud, more Republicans are becoming confident in the accuracy of the 2020 election, with 38% saying they are confident now while 29% said they were confident in August 2021, according to the latest Marquette Law School Poll. Between August 2021 and the most recent poll, independents’ confidence fell from 79% to 55%, though the percentage didn’t change much from the October 2021 poll. Democrats remain trusting of the accuracy of the election, with 96% saying they were confident.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The state has multiple, overlapping safeguards aimed at preventing ineligible voters from casting ballots, tampering with the ballots or altering vote totals.
Nothing in the emails suggests there were problems with the election that contributed in any meaningful way to Trump’s 20,682-vote loss to Joe Biden.
“Despite concerns with statewide elections procedures, this audit showed us that the election was largely safe and secure,” Sen. Rob Cowles said Friday.
The grants were provided to every Wisconsin municipality that asked for them, and in the amounts they asked for.
“Application of the U.S. Department of Justice guidance among the clerks in Wisconsin is not uniform,” the memo says.
“To put it simply, we did not break the law,” the chair of the Elections Commission said.
The memo states that state law gives the Audit Bureau complete access to all records during an audit investigation and federal law and guidance does not prohibit an election official from handing over election records.
Drop boxes were used throughout Wisconsin, including in areas where Trump won the vast majority of counties.
Thousands of ballot certifications examined from Madison are a window onto how elections officials handled a pandemic and a divided and unhelpful state government.
“I don’t think that you instill confidence in a process by kind of blindly assuming there’s nothing to see here,” WILL president and general counsel Rick Esenberg said.
The Associated Press reviewed every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvan…
The report is the latest to show that there was not widespread fraud in Wisconsin.
