ASHLAND COUNTY, WI – Wisconsin Special Counsel Michael Gableman – hired by Republican Speaker of the State Assembly Robin Vos to investigate suspected election fraud during the 2020 presidential election – released a 135-page interim report on March 1 that alleges numerous instances of misconduct. The report quickly received massive pushback by both Wisconsin’s Governor and election officials, who maintain that Gableman’s findings are “inaccurate” and that the election was conducted fairly.
The investigation was born out of Republican refusal to accept the results of 2020 presidential election – which saw Joe Biden defeat incumbent Donald Trump – following frequent and yet-unproven claims of voter fraud by Trump. Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by a slim margin – nearly 21,000 votes – and since then Wisconsin Republicans have conducted recounts, a state audit and court challenges, all of which have upheld the election results.
Gableman, a former justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, began his investigation last summer, and his report alleges that there are instances of “numerous mentally incompetent nursing home residents, non-citizens, and ineligible felons casting votes,” in addition to municipal and county clerks purportedly violating state law by utilizing unstaffed absentee ballot drop-boxes, as well as claims of bribery, obstruction, and numerous other violations.
The report’s conclusion recommended that state legislators consider decertifying Biden’s win in Wisconsin, despite the fact that there is no legal route for them to do so; Vos and Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke have stated that they will not even try, but instead will use Gableman’s findings to enact voter reform in the state and restore the public’s confidence in the election process.
However, the Wisconsin Elections Commission issued a rebuttal to Gableman’s report on Friday, stating that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has not yet determined if absentee ballot drop boxes are legal or not – a lower-court judge in January had ruled them illegal – and that accusations that election officials failed to prevent mentally incompetent people from voting were incorrect, as only a judge can revoke an individual’s voting privileges due to their mental state.
The rebuttal also disparaged other allegations made by Gableman, including that $8.8 million in private grants to cover election administration costs in several Wisconsin cities amounted to bribery – a federal judge found no laws on the books prohibiting the acceptance of such money – and that election officials encouraged people to claim they were “indefinitely confined” to avoid having to provide photo identification for voting, among others.
Democrat Governor Tony Evers released a statement last Monday that was highly critical of Gableman’s report.
“This circus has long surpassed being a mere embarrassment to our state,” he said. “Every day this effort continues, it is an increasingly dangerous and ongoing threat to our democracy.”
According to reports on the findings, Gableman called for several officials, including Racine Mayor Cory Mason and Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair Ann Jacobs, to be jailed for refusing to sit for the interviews for which they have been subpoenaed.
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