Wisconsin

Wisconsin Governor calls for expanding early voting, seeks to let clerks count absentee ballots before election day | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Gov. Tony Evers' state budget would expand early voting, allow clerks to count absentee ballots before election day and require a voter bill of rights to be posted at every polling station. The Democratic governor's push to change voting laws comes after the coronavirus pandemic upended elections in 2020. Republicans who control the Legislature have called for tightening election laws and are likely to toss out many of the voting proposals from Evers.  Evers wants to allow local officials to decide when early voting should begin, instead of limiting it to the two weeks before election day. Republicans put the early voting limits in place years ago, saying they wanted to make sure large communities don't start early voting well before rural areas.  Evers is seeking to add a provision to state law that would require polling stations to post notices telling people they have a number of rights, including the right to vote if eligible, review a sample ballot before voting, cast a secret ballot, get assistance if they are disabled and report illegal activity. The notices would also have to alert people that they are allowed to vote if they are in line before the polls close. Evers wants to allow clerks to count absentee ballots on the day before election day if they want. Clerks have long asked for that authority, saying it would have helped them contend with an unprecedented influx of mail ballots during the pandemic. Under Evers' plan, clerks could count absentee ballots between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. the day before election day as long as they used automatic tabulating machines. Members of the public would be allowed to watch the process, just as they can observe voting at the polls.

Full Article: Tony Evers calls for expanding early voting as part of state budget

Wisconsin’s 2020 election will be audited, Republican-led state committee orders | Riley Vetterkind/The Journal Times

A Republican-controlled legislative committee on Thursday authorized a comprehensive audit of the administration of the November election, a move that Republicans said will increase confidence in the electoral process but one that Democrats said might be used as a vehicle to do the opposite. The Joint Legislative Audit Committee on a 6-4 party line vote authorized the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau to conduct an audit into how the presidential election was conducted. State auditor Joe Chrisman said he anticipates the bureau will complete the audit by the fall of 2021 and that a series of findings could be reported along the way. The committee allowed officials a broad scope of inquiry, but the Audit Bureau has proposed looking into efforts by the Wisconsin Elections Commission to comply with state election laws, including its work with local election officials to ensure voter registration data includes only eligible voters and providing training and guidance to clerks. The audit is also expected to examine whether local clerks complied with election laws, including administering elections, processing absentee ballots and performing recount responsibilities. Other topics of inquiry are the use of electronic voting machines, including the methodology and results of the Elections Commission’s most recent statutorily required post-election audit and the actions taken in its wake; as well as a look at general election-related complaints filed with the WEC and local clerks, and how they were addressed.

Full Article: Wisconsin's 2020 election will be audited, Republican-led state committee orders | Govt-and-politics | journaltimes.com

Wisconsin Republicans order an audit of the 2020 elections | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Republican lawmakers launched an audit of Wisconsin's elections Thursday, three months after Donald Trump lost at the ballot box and in a string of lawsuits. The review by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau will look at some issues that have faced scrutiny from courts and election observers, such as how the state maintains its voter rolls and when it allows voters to get absentee ballots without showing IDs. Rep. Samantha Kerkman, a Salem Lakes Republican and co-chairwoman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, said she wanted to make sure voters are confident that elections are fair. "It is the cornerstone of our government," she said.  Her committee approved the audit along party lines Thursday after an hours-long hearing. The hearing included testimony from the state's top elections official as well as lawmakers, young children who quoted from the Bible and a woman who read a computer's IP address as she asked questions about the accuracy of electronic voting. No significant problems were found with Wisconsin's voting machines after audits and recounts in 2016 and 2020. 

Full Article: Wisconsin Republicans order an audit of the 2020 elections

Wisconsin: More than 37,000 absentee ballots tied to elections commission mailing | Scott Bauer/Associated Press

More than 37,000 absentee ballots were counted from Wisconsin voters who returned an application form ahead of the November presidential election, a mailing that was a compromise by the politically divided state elections commission. Democrats wanted to send the mailing to all registered voters, whether they had requested an absentee ballot or not. Republicans on the commission ultimately prevailed in sending the mailing only to 2.6 million people who did not already have an absentee ballot application on file. It’s impossible to know whether the 37,481 people who returned the application form and later cast an absentee ballot would have done so had they not received the mailing. Wisconsin voters do not register by party, so it’s also impossible to know how many of those voters were Republicans or Democrats. However, Democrats were more aggressive in promoting absentee voting for Joe Biden while former President Donald Trump and his allies argued against absentee voting, saying before the election that voting by mail was rife with fraud. Biden won Wisconsin by fewer than 21,000 votes. After Trump’s loss, he argued unsuccessfully for tossing more than 238,000 absentee ballots that he said were illegally cast in Milwaukee and Dane counties in a failed attempt to overturn Biden’s win. Trump’s arguments were rejected by the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump did not single out absentee ballots returned using the application form sent by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Full Article: More than 37,000 Wisconsin absentee ballots tied to mailing

Wisconsin: In ‘thousands of complaints’ about election, few that could be substantiated | Chris Rickert and Riley Vetterkind/Wisconsin State Journal

In December, with then-President Donald Trump continuing to falsely claim that massive fraud and other voting irregularities had denied him a second term, top Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature said they were reviewing “thousands of complaints” about the Nov. 3 election. There were indeed thousands of complaints in the emails sent between Nov. 3 and Dec. 8 to lawmakers investigating the election. The majority of them, however, were mass-generated form letters making nonspecific claims about alleged irregularities, a right-wing fraud-finding effort and a clip from Fox’s Sean Hannity show. Others implored Republican lawmakers to overturn an election they were convinced was rigged, even though local, state and national officials have confirmed its integrity. The Wisconsin State Journal was able to identify just 28 allegations of election fraud or other irregularities that were specific enough to attempt to verify, but could only partially substantiate one, involving 42 votes. Interviews with dozens of prosecutors, election officials and people who lodged complaints made clear that most, if not all, of the allegations could be chalked up to hearsay or minor administrative errors. Republican Rep. Ron Tusler said the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, which he chaired last session, has so far been able to substantiate only one case of potential voter fraud in the Nov. 3 election: A Cedarburg woman was charged in November after she allegedly submitted an absentee ballot for her dead partner.

Full Article: In 'thousands of complaints' about Wisconsin election, few that could be substantiated | Wisconsin Elections | madison.com

Editorial: Wisconsin lawmakers show us how not to fix the electoral college |The Washington Post

President Joe Biden won Wisconsin last November by a mere 20,000 votes, out of more than 3.2 million cast. Like most states, Wisconsin has a winner-take-all system, so he won all 10 of its electoral votes. Now, a Wisconsin state lawmaker proposes changing how the state allocates its electoral votes, splitting them among candidates according to how they fared in each of the state’s eight congressional districts. Maine and Nebraska have similar systems, which enabled President Trump to win an electoral vote by carrying Maine’s 2nd District and Mr. Biden to gain an electoral vote by winning Nebraska’s 2nd District in the 2020 race. The idea has some superficial appeal: If every state allocated electoral votes this way, it would encourage candidates to campaign outside a few privileged enclaves without upending the electoral college system, and candidates would draw at least some electoral votes from states they lost narrowly. But there are two major problems. First is the partisan context. Democrats have won Wisconsin — often by narrow margins — in every election save one since 1988. The Republicans who control the state legislature would enable GOP candidates to win electoral votes out of Wisconsin, while lawmakers in states that vote more reliably Republican would maintain their winner-take-all systems, biasing the electoral map against Democrats. Worse, allocating electoral votes by congressional district would import gerrymandering into the presidential election process. Because of Wisconsin’s warped congressional map, if the system had been in place in 2020, Mr. Trump would have taken six electoral votes from Wisconsin and Mr. Biden only four, despite the president-elect’s 20,000-vote margin. And Mr. Biden would have fared even that well only because the statewide winner would have gotten two automatic electoral votes; Mr. Trump carried six of the state’s eight congressional districts. If Mr. Biden had narrowly lost, he likely would have won only two electoral votes to Mr. Trump’s eight. In other words, the state’s electoral votes would have been allocated in a manner that was far from proportional.

Full Article: Opinion | Wisconsin lawmakers show us how not to fix the electoral college - The Washington Post

Pennsylvania: First it was ‘fraud,’ then they just didn’t like the rules: How Republicans justified trying to overturn an election | Andrew Seidman and Jonathan Tamari/Philadelphia Inquirer

As Joe Biden took the lead in the vote count and then won Pennsylvania, some of the state’s top Republicans added their voices to President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the election was stolen and rife with fraud. U.S. Rep. Scott Perry joined a “Stop the Steal” rally in Harrisburg and later went on Fox Business Network to blast Pennsylvania’s election as a “horrific embarrassment.“They say, ‘Oh, you know, 100,000 votes just showed up, and oh by the way, they all just happen to be for Joe Biden,’” he said in one interview on Nov 6. “We had dead people voting. We had a lot of people voting two or three times,” U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly said during a Nov. 24 interview on Sean Hannity’s Fox News radio program. And U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler went on the far-right cable channel Newsmax to amplify unproven claims and said, “We know there were individuals that were dead that miraculously registered to vote and mailed in a vote.”

Full Article: Pennsylvania Republicans' election fraud claims shrunk before they objected to Electoral College

Wisconsin Senate Republicans block resolution condemning U.S. Capitol assault and affirming Biden victory | Molly Beck/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked an effort to condemn last week's assault of the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead and police officers beaten and hit with stun guns. Senate President Chris Kapenga denied a resolution from Democratic Sen. Jeff Smith of Eau Claire from being taken up during Tuesday's floor session saying it was not relevant to the state Senate. It would have acknowledged that Joe Biden won the Nov. 3 presidential election, condemned the deadly riot and President Donald Trump's claims of a "stolen election," and offered condolences to the family of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick who was killed by the mob during the Jan. 6 breach. Republican senators agreed with Kapenga's ruling and voted to block the resolution from being taken up. Smith argued the resolution was relevant because of recent warnings from the Federal Bureau of Investigations that "armed protests" were being planned at every state Capitol in the country. "I do believe it has a lot to do with the organization of not only this Senate but the protection of this building," Smith said in response to Kapenga's ruling, saying the FBI warning shows a direct threat to the Wisconsin State Capitol and its members. "More than ever would be an opportunity to pull together and denounce what has been happening in this country and in this state regarding how our elections are run," he said.

Full Article: Wisconsin Senate Republicans block resolution condemning U.S. Capitol assault and affirming Biden victory

Wisconsin GOP Group Condemned for ‘Prepare for War’ Website Message | Brendan Cole/Newsweek

With the U.S. reeling from the aftermath of the insurrection in the U.S. Capitol by some supporters of President Donald Trump, a GOP group in Wisconsin is under fire for a message on its website that urges conservatives to "prepare for war." At the top of the website of the St. Croix Republican Party is the Latin phrase "Si vis pacem, para bellum." The GOP group from the northwest of the Badger State says the message, which means "If you want peace, prepare for war," had been online before the protests last Wednesday. On the front of the group's website, which it describes as a "digital battlefield" and whose banner reads "Patriots: God, guns freedom, liberty," the St. Croix Republicans say that "never before has the mission of the Conservative patriot been so clear." It claims that over the last four years, the Democrats had worked with the "Marxist left and a complicit mass media" to overturn the 2016 election and accused the party of "changing the rules of the game" in the 2020 election cycle.

Full Article: Wisconsin GOP Group Condemned for 'Prepare for War' Website Message

Wisconsin: After holdup, Republicans agree to reimburse Milwaukee and Dane counties for recount costs | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Republican state lawmakers agreed Friday to reimburse two counties that went to President-elect Joe Biden nearly $2.5 million for their recount costs after blocking the payments for a month. The move will allow Dane and Milwaukee counties, along with the state Elections Commission, to recover their costs for the recount President Donald Trump sought after narrowly losing the state. It will also allow Trump's campaign to get a refund of more than $500,000 for expenses that weren't incurred. Under state law, Trump's campaign had to pay $3 million before the recount could begin. But after the recount, Republicans on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee prevented the Elections Commission from reimbursing the counties because they wanted to review receipts. Now that that's happened, they announced Friday they were freeing up the money so the counties could be reimbursed. They made the decision two days after pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol and Congress confirmed Biden's win. “Although the receipts from Dane and Milwaukee counties have raised concerns, we now have the information we need to approve their request," said a statement from Rep. Mark Born of Beaver Dam, a co-chairman of the committee.

Full Article: After holdup, Republicans agree to reimburse Milwaukee and Dane counties for recount costs

Editorial: Ron Johnson’s dangerous shilling for Donald Trump makes him unfit to represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The arrogance of Ron Johnson is breathtaking. Johnson and 12 other Republican senators say they will challenge the tabulation of Electoral College votes in Congress on Wednesday in a dangerous political stunt that will accomplish nothing but may burnish their image with those who would choose outgoing President Donald Trump over democracy. Johnson and his shameful friends are planning to support Trump as he directly opposes the will of the people. Their challenge will lead to a long debate in Congress but nothing more, given Democratic control of the House of Representatives. In the end, the results of the presidential election will not change: Joe Biden will still have beaten Trump by 7 million votes and won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. But Johnson's stunt will do harm to our democracy. What precedent is being set here? What happens the next time a party — either party — loses the presidency narrowly while controlling both houses of Congress? Will those politicians do what Johnson and his hyperpartisan mob are doing? Will they make up lies about the election, cry voter fraud, complain about voting machines, election officials and any other ghost they can conjure? The playbook for turmoil is simple: Create suspicion. Fuel the fears of the side that lost. Don’t bother with facts or truth. Keep repeating and spreading lies until people forget their source and start to believe them or become so confused they can no longer determine the truth.

Full Article: Ron Johnson's dangerous shilling for Trump makes him unfit for Senate

Wisconsin: Federal judge scoffs at election lawsuit brought by state Republicans | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A federal judge on Monday rejected the underpinning of a lawsuit seeking to undo election results brought by two Wisconsin Republicans and others, writing that it was riddled with errors, unserious and brought in bad faith. The lawsuit by state Reps. David Steffen of Howard and Jeffrey Mursau of Crivitz, among others, is rife with so many problems that their lawyers may need to be sanctioned professionally, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., wrote. He noted the attorneys had not served the lawsuit on its numerous defendants, even after Boasberg reminded them they needed to do that. "Courts are not instruments through which parties engage in such gamesmanship or symbolic political gestures," he wrote. "As a result, at the conclusion of this litigation, the Court will determine whether to issue an order to show cause why this matter should not be referred to its Committee on Grievances for potential discipline of Plaintiffs’ counsel." His ruling denied a preliminary injunction that sought to undo the certifications of elections in Wisconsin and other battleground states that went to Democrat Joe Biden over President Donald Trump.

Full Article: Judge scoffs at election lawsuit brought by Wisconsin Republicans

Wisconsin: Trump Campaign Asks US Supreme Court To Take Case On Overturning Election Results | Danielle Kaeding/Wisconsin Public Radio

The Trump campaign wants the U.S. Supreme Court to consider its lawsuit seeking to overturn Wisconsin's U.S. presidential election results after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against them this month. The Trump campaign's lead attorney Rudy Giuliani announced the filing on Tuesday. The state Supreme Court rejected the campaign's lawsuit in a 4-3 vote, ruling that President Donald Trump should have challenged Wisconsin's rules prior to the November election if he had problems with them. "Regrettably, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in their 4-3 decision, refused to address the merits of our claim," said Jim Troupis, Trump's lead Wisconsin attorney. "This 'Cert Petition' asks them to address our claims, which, if allowed, would change the outcome of the election in Wisconsin.” Troupis highlighted that three conservative members of the state Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Pat Roggensack, dissented from the majority. In doing so, they voiced criticism of fellow conservative Brian Hagedorn, who sided with liberal justices in the 4-3 decision. The ruling came hours before the state's electors were set to cast their votes for President-elect Joe Biden. The Trump campaign wants the nation's highest court to provide an expedited decision before Congress counts Electoral College votes on Jan. 6.

Full Article: Trump Campaign Asks US Supreme Court To Take Case On Overturning Wisconsin Election Results | Wisconsin Public Radio

Wisconsin: Federal appeals court rejects Trump bid to overturn election results | Bill Glauber/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump's latest effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Wisconsin. The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld a decision reached nearly two weeks ago by U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig in Milwaukee. In his suit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission and others, Trump had sought to have the Republican-led Legislature, rather than voters, decide how to allocate Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes. Ludwig — a Trump nominee — concluded Wisconsin officials had followed state laws when they conducted the Nov. 3 election. In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel in Chicago "affirmed" Ludwig's decision. "On the merits, the district court was right to enter judgment for the defendants," the 7th Circuit said. "We reach this conclusion in no small part because of the President’s delay in bringing the challenges to Wisconsin law that provide the foundation for the alleged constitutional violation. Even apart from the delay, the claims fail under the Electors Clause." Judge Michael Scudder Jr., nominated to the court by Trump, wrote the decision. The other members of the panel were Judge Joel Flaum and Judge Ilana Rovner, who were both nominated by Ronald Reagan.

Full Article: Federal appeals court rejects Trump bid to overturn Wisconsin results

Wisconsin Chief Justice Decries ‘Threats of Actual or Proposed Violence’ After Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules Against Trumpe | Aaron Keller/Law & Crime

Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack issued a rare Christmas Day statement decrying concerning comments throttled toward at the judiciary, including “threats of actual or proposed violence.” The statement comes on the heels of a narrow 4 to 3 decision earlier this month which shot down election litigation launched by President Donald Trump. Though Roggensack was part of the dissent (and, therefore, ruled in favor of Trump), she was apparently not interested in standing idly by as her fellow justices were menaced for ruling against the president. … The statement arguably applies to comments levied toward multiple justices. Justices Jill Karofsky and Rebecca Dallet have reportedly been subjected to a “torrent of misogynistic and anti-Semitic messages.” The majority ruling which dismissed Trump’s election case was authored by Justice Brian Hagedorn, the former chief legal counsel to Republican Gov. Scott Walker who went on to win an election to serve on the state’s highest court. The New York Times called Hagedorn a “darling of the right” in a recent piece which touched briefly on a certain level of vitriol Hagedorn received after authoring the opinion. “I’ve been called a traitor. I’ve been called a liar. I’ve been called a fraud,” Hagedorn told the Times. “I’ve been asked if I’m being paid off by the Chinese Communist Party. I’ve been told I might be tried for treason by a military tribunal. Sure, I’ve gotten lots of interesting and sometimes dark messages.”

Full Article: Wisconsin Justice Decries Threats of Violence | Law & Crime

Wisconsin: Milwaukee, Dane counties presidential recounts come in about $355,000 less than projected | Alison Dirr Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The presidential recounts in Milwaukee and Dane counties came in about $355,000 below the $3 million projected cost, according to figures provided by the counties to the state Tuesday. Dane County's recount came in about $11,000 below budget while Milwaukee County's was about $343,600 lower than expected. The county clerks who oversaw the recounts credited the lower price tag to finishing days before the Dec. 1 deadline. "I’m glad, I’m happy," Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson said of coming in under budget. "We always want to be as accurate as possible, and I felt that because of the efficiency at which we operated and the fact that we put into service more tabulators and we had such dedicated election workers, that we were able to get the job done a few days ahead of schedule." President Donald Trump requested the recount only in the state's two most populous and most liberal counties after losing the state by about 21,000 votes out of about 3 million total to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.

Full Article: Trump recounts in Milwaukee, Dane counties cost less than projected

Wisconsin: Biggest expenses in Dane County’s $700k presidential recount: workers, scanners | Abigail Becker and Briana Reilly/The Capital Times

Dane County incurred over $729,700 in costs to administer the presidential recount election, coming in about $11,000 under Clerk Scott McDonell’s original estimate to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The total cost of the recount, $729,733, included expenses for recount staff, security, room rental at Madison’s Monona Terrace, tabulator machines and election software. McDonell’s original estimate for the cost of the recount was $740,808. Among the most expensive items: the county paid $243,122 for temporary workers who tabulated the ballots during the week-and-a-half long process and $129,530 for high speed scanners. Security costs included $104,306 for the Madison Police Department and $8,694 for a private security company. The partial recount of the November election, requested and paid for by President Donald Trump, targeted liberal Dane and Milwaukee counties and served as a vehicle for the president and his allies to mount a series of legal challenges in the state that President-elect Joe Biden won by fewer than 21,000 votes. Milwaukee County officials haven’t responded to requests in recent days seeking the costs of administering the recount there. The county had previously estimated doing so would amount to just over $2 million.

Full Article: Biggest expenses in Dane County's $700k presidential recount: workers, scanners | Local Government | madison.com

Wisconsin: Justices Face Anti-Semitic, Misogynist Attacks After Trump Ruling | Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner

Trump supporters unleashed a barrage of obscenity on Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky after Karofsky joined the majority in a decision rejecting the Trump campaign’s lawsuit seeking to throw out more than 200,000 votes in Dane and Milwaukee counties. Progressive Magazine editor Bill Lueders has published the contents of some of those messages to Karofsky, which the Progressive received in response to an open records request. In an article co-published by the Wisconsin Examiner, Lueders also reported on the contents of critical voicemail and email messages aimed at conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn, who wrote the majority decision rejecting the Trump campaign’s lawsuit. The messages to Karofsky were both cruder and more aggressive than those directed at Hagedorn. Justice Rebecca Dallet also shared email, voicemail, and written messages denouncing her for joining the decision. Karofsky and Dallet were the targets of an online anti-Semitic attack on a blog reposted by the white supremacist website Daily Stormer that identifies Karofsky and Dallet as “Wisconsin Jews.” “Powerful Jews came together to assure their people hold as many positions of power as possible,” it asserts, and repeats anti-Semitic canards about a cabal of wealthy Jews who dominate Ivy League universities and businesses. Both the blog post and the obscenity-laced messages to Karofsky’s office focus on her comment that the Trump campaign’s effort to throw out votes “smacks of racism.”

Full Article: Justices Face Anti-Semitic, Misogynist Attacks After Trump Ruling » Urban Milwaukee

Wisconsin: A Conservative Justice in Says He Followed the Law, Not the Politics | Reid J. Epstein/The New York Times

Justice Brian Hagedorn of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is a veteran of the last decade’s fiercest partisan wars. As chief legal counsel of Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, Justice Hagedorn helped write the 2011 law that stripped public-sector labor unions of their collective bargaining rights. Then in 2019, he won a narrow election to a 10-year term on the Supreme Court with backing from the state’s Republican media and grass-roots networks. But Justice Hagedorn, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, who in 2016 founded a private school that forbids same-sex relationships among its employees and students, is no longer a darling of the right. In a series of 4-3 decisions in recent months, he sided with the court’s three liberal justices to stop an effort to purge 130,000 people from the Wisconsin voter rolls, block the Green Party candidate and Kanye West from the general election presidential ballot and, on two separate occasions, reject President Trump’s effort to overturn President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in Wisconsin. Justice Hagedorn has in recent days found himself at odds not just with his political base but with his fellow conservative justices, who have spared little expense in showing their anger at him in judicial dissents defending Mr. Trump’s case.

Full Article: A Conservative Justice in Wisconsin Says He Followed the Law, Not the Politics - The New York Times

Republican lawmakers hold up Wisconsin recount funds as counties finalize costs | Briana Reilly and Abigail Becker/The Capital Times

The Legislature’s powerful budget committee is, for now, refusing to reimburse Dane and Milwaukee county officials for their work in conducting the election recount President Donald Trump requested and paid for following his loss in Wisconsin. The panel, controlled by Republicans, officially paused the process last Friday after one member raised an objection to the ask, meaning the full Joint Finance Committee may have to meet before the dollars are passed on. The state already has $3 million from Trump’s campaign to cover what the counties’ estimated costs were for the recount. The identity of the lawmaker who raised the objection is unknown, but the offices of the committee’s co-chairs say it came about because only the initial estimate of the costs is available, while the final figures haven’t yet been completed or shared. “The committee simply needs more information,” co-chair Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said in a statement. “At the time the request was before the committee, and still today, we do not know the actual costs of the recount. Once those counties submit their receipts, we will have more information.” On Monday, Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said in an email that the county is working through the billing process to determine a final cost for the recount. He had been waiting on a bill from the Madison Police Department, which he expected to be “significant.”

Full Article: Republican lawmakers hold up Wisconsin recount funds as counties finalize costs | Local Government | madison.com

Wisconsin Senate leader wants bill by July to allow absentee counting before Election Day | Molly Beck and Alison Durr/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The incoming leader of the state Senate is pushing legislation to allow election officials to count absentee ballots before Election Day — a change some election officials have sought for years. Republican state Sen. Devin LeMahieu, who will begin the new legislative session as Senate Majority Leader, said he wants the Legislature to expand the amount of time absentee ballots may be counted by July, according to the Associated Press. "I have no idea where my caucus would be at on that but I would think (it would pass),” LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, told the AP. “As long as it’s secure, I would think we could get there.” The proposal, which LeMahieu has previously pushed for unsuccessfully, comes in the wake of the November presidential election during which a massive influx of absentee ballots forced election officials in Milwaukee and elsewhere to count absentee ballots well after midnight because of a state law that requires election officials to wait until Election Day to begin counting.

Full Article: Senate leader wants bill by July to allow absentee counting before Election Day

Wisconsin: Ron Johnson’s last hearing as chair of the Senate homeland security committee unfolds in post-election acrimony | Craig Gilbert/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Ron Johnson’s final hearing as chairman of the Senate homeland security committee was a divisive and bitter one, devolving at one point Wednesday into a near shouting match between the Wisconsin Republican and the panel’s top Democrat, Gary Peters of Michigan. “This is terrible what you’re doing to this committee,” Peters exclaimed to Johnson. “It is what you have done to this committee,” Johnson answered heatedly. The subject of that angry exchange — the two accused each other of spreading falsehoods — was the role of Russian disinformation, a source of bitter partisan feuding ever since the 2016 election. It was the 2020 election that was the official subject of Wednesday's hearing. And that provided plenty of acrimony as senators on both sides took turns airing their grievances about the presidential contest and its aftermath. Johnson, who acknowledged Tuesday that Democrat Joe Biden won the election, said Wednesday he hoped the hearing would be a noncontroversial probe into how to improve public confidence in elections. At the same time, he aired broad claims at the hearing of fraud and irregularities made by President Donald Trump's campaign that have repeatedly failed in court. … “We’re past the point where we need to be having conversations about the outcome of the election," said the Democrats' chief witness, Christopher Krebs, a homeland security official that was fired by Trump after he defended the security of the election. Krebs also bemoaned the threats of violence that have been made against local election officials for certifying the outcome of the election, saying: "This is not an America I recognize. It’s got to stop. We need everyone across the leadership ranks to stand up. I would appreciate more support from my own party, the Republican Party, to call this stuff out and to end it. We've got to move on. We have a president-elect."

Full Article: Senate hearing on election leads to acrimony over fraud allegations

Wisconsin: A pandemic. False fraud claims. A misplaced flash drive. How Milwaukee elections chief led high-pressure vote count. | Nora Eckert/Channel 3000

Election workers across the nation have been threatened with violence, accused of tampering with results of the Nov. 3 election, and some have battled a virus that’s killed nearly 300,000 people nationwide. For these people, the desire to serve their communities has come with unexpected tensions because of a bitterly contentious presidential race and the subsequent legal battles over its outcome. Claire Woodall-Vogg has weathered many such challenges in her five months as the top election official in Milwaukee — the largest city in a swing state whose results were scrutinized, criticized and the subject of allegations of “late-night ballot dumps” that favored President-elect Joe Biden. “(It’s been) extremely partisan and divided,” said Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission. “That doesn’t shock me, but the fact that people are supporting someone trying to overturn the actual results is disappointing.” Many of her colleagues laud her performance. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett told Wisconsin Watch that she’s supervised the most transparent election the city has ever seen. Common Council President Cavalier Johnson called her performance “stellar” and her predecessor, Neil Albrecht, said he “couldn’t think of anyone more dedicated to avoiding error.” Her deputy, Jonatan Zuniga, said if she “had a million and one things to do, she did them all.” Still, critics rebuke her missteps, such as mistakenly leaving behind a flash drive in a tabulator on election night, which she later retrieved.

Full Article: A pandemic. False fraud claims. A misplaced flash drive. How Milwaukee elections chief led high-pressure vote count.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Was One Vote Away From Flipping the State to Trump | Ed Kilgore/New York Magazine

It didn’t get much attention because it happened the very day the Electoral College formally awarded Joe Biden the presidency, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court only narrowly rejected a bid by the Trump campaign to throw out over 200,000 absentee ballots in the state’s two most Democratic counties. The 4-3 decision by what is generally considered the most polarized and politically driven high court in the country involved one conservative justice (Brian Hagedorn) joining three liberal colleagues in rejecting the Trump petition, mostly because it addressed alleged improper local election practices that were apparent long before balloting occurred. The legal doctrine of “laches” (undue delay in asserting a legal right or privilege) was emphasized in the majority opinion. But in dissent, three conservative justices (in an opinion written by Chief Justice Patience Drake Roggensack) agreed with the Trump campaign’s claims that election officials in Dane and Milwaukee Counties violated state laws by instructing election clerks to correct small errors in the addresses listed for witnesses of absentee ballot signatures. They also objected to Dane County accepting absentee ballots at a preelection “Democracy in the Park” event in Madison, regarding it as a form of unauthorized early in-person voting. The dissenters did not address a third Trump claim that voters claiming “indefinitely confined” status due to the COVID-19 pandemic were illegally allowed to evade photo ID requirements.

Full Article: Wisconsin Supreme Court Was Close to Flipping State to Trump

Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules Trump Election Challenge ‘Unreasonable In The Extreme’ | Vanessa Romo/NPR

It was close but in the end, the conservative-led Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump campaign's bid to throw out more than 220,000 ballots from two Democratic county strongholds. The move, which came just shortly before Electoral College voters were due to cast their ballots, ensured President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn sided with the court's three liberal members in the 4-3 ruling, finding Trump's legal challenge to change Wisconsin's certified election results "unreasonable in the extreme" and was filed too late. "The challenges raised by the Campaign in this case ... come long after the last play or even the last game; the Campaign is challenging the rulebook adopted before the season began," Hagedorn said in the 81-page decision. "Striking these votes now — after the election, and in only two of Wisconsin's 72 counties when the disputed practices were followed by hundreds of thousands of absentee voters statewide — would be an extraordinary step for this court to take. We will not do so."

Full Article: Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules Trump Election Challenge 'Unreasonable In The Extreme' : NPR

Wisconsin Supreme Court upholds Biden’s win, rejects Trump lawsuit | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The state Supreme Court upheld Democrat Joe Biden's Wisconsin win Monday, handing President Donald Trump a defeat less than an hour before the Electoral College met. The 4-3 ruling was the latest in a string of dozens of losses for the president across the country as Republicans pursue last-gasp efforts to give Trump a second term. Just after the decision was issued, the Electoral College cemented Biden's national victory. In the majority, conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn joined the court's three liberals to confirm Biden's win. They found one of Trump's arguments was without merit and his others were brought far too late. Trump's challenges to Wisconsin's voting laws "come long after the last play or even the last game," Hagedorn wrote for the majority. "(Trump) is challenging the rulebook adopted before the season began." The three other conservatives on the court dissented, writing they believed clerks violated the law with some election practices. They argued the majority should have taken on the merits of Trump's arguments instead of sidestepping them by saying he'd filed his lawsuit too late.

Full Article: Wisconsin Supreme Court upholds Biden's win, rejects Trump lawsuit

Wisconsin: A Stunning Passage from the Latest Court Rejection of Team Trump | Andrew C. McCarthy/National Review

The most telling aspect of the Wisconsin federal district court’s rejection of another Trump campaign lawsuit on Saturday is so obvious it is easy to miss. And no, it is not that the rejecting was done by a Trump-appointed judge, Brett H. Ludwig, or that it was done on the merits. After all that’s been said over the last six weeks, this fleeting passage near the start of the court’s workmanlike, 23-page decision and order should take our breath away (my highlighting):

With the Electoral College meeting just days away, the Court declined to address the issues in piecemeal fashion and instead provided plaintiff with an expedited hearing on the merits of his claims. On the morning of the hearing, the parties reached agreement on a stipulated set of facts and then presented arguments to the Court.

A “stipulated set of facts,” in this context, is an agreement between the lawyers for the adversary parties about what testimony witnesses would give, and/or what facts would be established, if the parties went through the process of calling witnesses and offering tangible evidence at a hearing or trial.… So what happened in Wisconsin? Judge Ludwig denied the state’s claims that the campaign lacked standing. Instead, he gave the campaign the hearing they asked for — the opportunity to call witnesses and submit damning exhibits. Yet, when it got down to brass tacks, the morning of the hearing, it turned out there was no actual disagreement between the Trump team and Wisconsin officials about the pertinent facts of the case. The president’s counsel basically said: Never mind, we don’t need to present all our proof . . . we’ll just stipulate to all the relevant facts and argue legal principles. In the end, after all the heated rhetoric, what did they tell the court the case was really about? Just three differences over the manner in which the election was administered — to all of which, as Ludwig pointed out, the campaign could have objected before the election if these matters had actually been of great moment.

Full Article: Trump Campaign Wisconsin Election Lawsuit: Court Rejects Allegations | National Review

Wisconsin GOP withholds Trump recount funds for Milwaukee, Dane counties | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Republican-led Legislature's budget committee is holding up reimbursements to two counties for their recount costs. President Donald Trump's campaign paid $3 million for recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, Wisconsin's two most Democratic areas. But two top Republicans said Friday they were withholding the money from the counties for now. They did not explain why. Lawmakers "are playing politics with money that isn't theirs," said Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson. "It's acting in bad faith," he said. "It's not their money. It's Trump's money and this is what he decided to spend it on." Under state law, losing candidates can request recounts but must pay the cost upfront if they lost by more than 0.25 percentage points. Trump lost Wisconsin to Democrat Joe Biden by 0.6 points and paid in advance for the recounts in the two counties. The recounts resulted in Biden slightly widening his lead, and courts so far have upheld Biden's victory in the state.

Full Article: Wis. GOP withholds Trump recount funds for Milwaukee, Dane counties

Wisconsin GOP election official says no evidence of voter fraud | Bill Glauber and Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission told legislative committees Friday that he has "not seen credible evidence of large-scale voter fraud in Wisconsin during the November election." There were no dumps of ballots during the night, none," Dean Knudson told lawmakers looking into the conduct of the Nov. 3 election that Democrat Joe Biden won by about 21,000 votes over President Donald Trump. "There is no evidence of any fraud related to Dominion voting machines in Wisconsin," Knudson said. "Counting in Wisconsin did not stop and restart. Election observers were allowed to be present throughout Election Day and election night proceedings. The number of voters on our poll books match the number of ballots cast. "There has been no criminal evidence presented to the Elections Commission that any of these problems occurred in Wisconsin," he said.

Full Article: Wisconsin GOP election official says no evidence of voter fraud

Wisconsin Trump lawsuit is thrown out, 5th adverse ruling in days | Patrick Marley/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A state judge concluded Wisconsin's election was conducted properly Friday, dealing President Donald Trump and his allies their fifth legal defeat in a little over a week. "There is no credible evidence of misconduct or wide-scale fraud," Reserve Judge Stephen Simanek said. Simanek issued his decision from the bench 73 hours before the Electoral College is to meet Monday to officially deliver the presidency to Democrat Joe Biden. Wisconsin's slate of 10 electors for Biden has already been certified, and Simanek's decision upheld that finding. Over the last week, courts in Wisconsin have thrown out four other lawsuits brought by Trump and his backers. And after a daylong hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig said he thought Trump might have taken too long to file yet another lawsuit. Ludwig is expected to rule in that case by Saturday. Trump lost Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes out of 3.3 million. That's a margin of 0.6 percentage points. He paid $3 million for recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the state's most populous and most liberal areas. The recounts slightly widened Biden's winning margin. Trump then filed a lawsuit directly with the state Supreme Court, but the justices last week on a 4-3 vote rejected it. The majority concluded Trump should have started in circuit court rather than the state's high court.

Full Article: Trump lawsuit in Wisconsin is thrown out, 5th adverse ruling in days