Wisconsin’s 2020 Republican election report has confirmed a host of debunked allegations of fraud and false claims about lawmakers’ power to nullify President Biden’s victory, confirming the veracity of the conspiracy theories that have gripped Republicans in the state for over 16 months.
Commissioned by the Republican speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly and written by a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, the allegations in the report promptly re-ignited Republicans in one of the nation’s most narrowly divided states. While some in the party are trying to move on to the next election, the report is likely to spur those who are still fixated on overthrowing the previous election.
This document is the last but not the final word on Wisconsin’s ongoing Republican-sanctioned investigation into false claims of fraud and fraud in the 2020 election. Robin Vos, Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, ordered an investigation and appointed Michael J. Gableman, a former judge, to lead it in June, days after former President Donald J. Trump issued statements criticizing him and other leading Republicans. State of Wisconsin for “hard work to cover up campaign corruption.”
Mr. Gableman presented his findings to the Wisconsin Assembly Election Commission during a hearing Tuesday. He bluntly refuted a legal analysis conducted by Legislative Assembly lawyers in November, which found that there was no legal basis for canceling the election.
The analysis concluded that the Constitution does not provide for a role for the states “after confirmation of the results of a presidential election”.
However, Mr. Gableman said on Tuesday, “The Legislature should very carefully consider decertifying the 2020 Wisconsin presidential election.”
But even if the election were to be annulled, Mr. Gableman admitted in his report that it would have no practical effect.
“This action in and of itself will have no other legal effect under state or federal law,” he wrote in the closing lines of the 136-page report. “For example, it won’t change who the current president is.”
The attempt to overturn the election results sparked calls for Mr. Vos to resign and nominated conspiracy theorist gubernatorial candidate Timothy Ramtun, a state representative. Some Republicans hoped that Mr. Gableman’s report would put an end to questions about the election. Mr. Gableman has made it clear that this is unlikely. “This is just the beginning of the investigation,” he said on Tuesday.
Jim Steinecke, Republican Majority Leader in the Assembly, criticized Mr. Gableman’s findings and vowed to stop them.
“I can guarantee that I will not be involved in any effort and will do my best to stop any effort, hold politicians responsible for deciding who wins or loses elections,” Mr. Steinecke, who does not claim for re-election this year. year, tweeted. “Delegating power to party politicians to determine the existence of electoral fraud will be the end of our republic as we know it.”
Mr Vos and his spokesman did not answer questions on Tuesday. Mr. Trump, in a statement at the start of the hearing, said “everyone who loves America” should watch Tuesday’s hearing and called Mr. Gableman “highly respected.”
The report, presented by Mr. Gableman, included a series of recommendations for Wisconsin lawmakers, who last week adjourned for a year. He said they should give individuals the ability to challenge the state’s electoral rolls; give the right to certify elections to a “politically accountable body” rather than the governor and election commission, whose members are appointed by the Legislature and the governor; provide presidential candidates with the opportunity to “collect alternative voter lists”; and allow contestation of election results after certification.
The report also says Wisconsin law should be changed to make it harder to certify presidential elections.
“In the case of large-scale competition, the thumb should be on the scales in favor of de-certifying voters,” Mr. Gableman wrote.
Wisconsin Republicans passed a series of new laws last week that would make it harder to vote. Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, said he would veto them. Mr. Evers had already vetoed Republican ballot bills last year.
“This circus has long ceased to be just a disgrace to our state,” Mr. Evers said Tuesday. “Every day these efforts continue, they represent an increasingly dangerous and constant threat to our democracy.”
In his testimony, he also called for the dismantling of the state’s bipartisan election commission; said Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder who funded a nonprofit that gave out grants to local election commissions, “bought the 2020 election for Biden”; and complained about negative media coverage. Testimony included 25 minutes of eight videotaped interviews between lawyers from the Thomas More Society, which sought to cancel the 2020 election, and nursing home voters, which were presented as evidence that nursing home residents “were taken advantage of.” » when employees helped them vote in 2020.
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Mr. Gableman is a longtime figure in Wisconsin conservative politics. After serving as a rural upstate district attorney and local judge, he won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2008 in a campaign in which he aired ads that critics called racist.
He worked in the Trump administration’s Office of Human Resources and, after Mr. Biden’s victory, said at a November 2020 rally in Milwaukee that the election had been stolen from Mr. Trump. In an interview with The New York Times in June 2021 after his appointment, Mr. Gableman said he was not sure who won the state.
“I hope that this investigative process will significantly reduce the number of such doubts in the future,” he said at the time.
Mr. Gableman spent the next eight months engaging in a variety of legal battles related to his investigation. On Tuesday, he said his investigation has spawned nine separate lawsuits that remain pending in Wisconsin courts.