The Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison was shown in 2017.
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Scott Bauer / AP
The Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison was shown in 2017.
Scott Bauer / AP
Debate over the 2020 presidential election is raging in the state of Wisconsin, where a prominent Republican lawmaker wants to strip the state’s bipartisan election authority of power – and hand it over to the Federal Assembly. Legislature controlled by the Republican Party.
United States Senator of Wisconsin, Ron Johnson first time came up with an idea of state legislators who control federal elections within the state. He quotes part of the United States Constitution That said, state legislatures can set the “time, place, and manner” of federal elections.
Johnson told Wisconsin Public Radio last week.
Johnson said he had “completely lost confidence” in the Wisconsin Elections Commission after a nonpartisan report on how to hold the 2020 election in Wisconsin. NS report, released at the end of last month, found no voter fraud or widespread misconduct that would alter the outcome of the 2020 election, but made dozens of recommendations to update election committee policies election and state laws relating to elections. It also outlines a number of ways the election commission failed to follow certain state laws in 2020.
“I think the state Legislature needs to reassert its authority [and] ensuring that, in federal elections, our election clerks follow state law, not guidelines that are contrary to state law,” Johnson said.
Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington in April.
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TJ Kirkpatrick / AP
Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington in April.
TJ Kirkpatrick / AP
Some of the violations outlined in the report stem from the election commission’s guidance for local officials during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those include:
- Instructions that officials may postpone before completing the vote count on election night “due to unforeseen circumstances.” State law does not allow this.
- Instructions that officials may move polling places, under certain circumstances. State law does not allow this.
- Instructions that officials should not send special voting delegates – individuals sent by secretaries to help vote – into nursing homes and care facilities because of the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts with the law state.
Guidelines that allow flexibility in polling location relocation have met with state public health order closed many polling places shortly before the presidential primaries in April.
On nursing homes, the trustees who support the proposal – five out of six are bipartisan appointees – said they were concerned special voting delegates would be turned away from the facilities because of restrictions. regime of the pandemic. They called for the use of absentee ballots instead, a move They dispute the residents’ right to vote is preserved.
However, a sheriff in southeastern Wisconsin has alleged nursing home guidelines allow eight residents at a local care facility to be inappropriately influenced by staff during the voting process. He alleges nursing home staff, who had no specialized training in helping residents vote, encouraged vulnerable residents to vote or vote in a certain way.
At a news conference last month, Police Chief Christopher Schmaling, who has publicly endorsed former President Donald Trump, call for five members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission who voted for the policy were charged with a felony.
“This is a broken law, and everyone who voted should feel the pain of it,” Schmaling said.
The local district attorney did not pursue any criminal charges following the charges – against members of the election commission or nursing home staff.
The head of the electoral commission faces calls to resign but says she won’t
Since the election reports and nursing home allegations, the head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, Meagan Wolfe, has faced calls from state GOP leaders to resign. Wolfe has said she will not resign and argued that Republicans are inappropriately targeting her.
“I think this is partisan politics at its worst,” she said in the first day of this month. “But, at the same time, I have an obligation as the state’s nonpartisan elections official to rise above it.”
If Wolfe resigns, the Republican-controlled Legislature is likely to choose her replacement.
While the two top GOP leaders in Wisconsin have harshly criticized the election commission in recent weeks, they seem cool with Johnson’s idea of letting state lawmakers take over the federal elections. state. They recently met with the senator, but State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told reporters in Madison they were not talking about Johnson’s proposal.
“The idea that we’re going to somehow take over the election and do all that… I’ve never studied that,” Vos said. “I don’t know about it.”
The majority leader in the state Senate cited legal concerns with Johnson’s proposal
State Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said he was unsure how the state legislature’s takeover of elections would work. He also pointed out that the electoral agency has expertise, but the legislators do not.
“I’m not sure how that will be accomplished,” LeMahieu told a Milwaukee television station. “We have a status [elections] agency for a reason, to review nomination signatures, to help candidates along the way, and to make sure secretaries around the state know how to run elections. “
LeMahieu also cited some legal concerns about going ahead with the plan. Opponents disputed the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States and Wisconsin Supreme Court would prohibit the Legislature from taking such action. Others argue that there would be confusion if, between the legal battle over who has the legal authority and the proper constitution, state legislators and election commissions both issue election guidance to voters. Secretary.
Johnson has acknowledged that possibility, but said he hopes it won’t come to that.
“I think that would be a very tragic outcome,” he said. “I would imagine some counties would follow the guidance of the state Legislature, which is what I believe they should do and some might follow what [the elections commission] speak.”
For his part, Democratic Governor Tony Evers has Call the proposal too big of an approach of the Republican Party. All this year, Evers has blocked GOP-backed election bills, including new limits on absentee voting, that were passed by the Legislature over the summer.
“As long as I am governor of this great state, anti-democracy efforts like this will never come to light,” the governor said at the time.
But Evers will be re-elected next year and his top GOP challenger, former Lieutenant Colonel Rebecca Kleefisch, has joined the chorus of Republican criticism of the election commission. Kleefisch File a lawsuit against the committee on the 2020 guidelines with the state Supreme Court earlier this month.
If Kleefisch is elected and Republicans maintain control of the Legislature, they will have an open path to changing Wisconsin elections – including those who control them.
