MADISON, Erase. (AP) — The Republican-hired Wisconsin 2020 election investigator who voted for Donald Trump said Tuesday that the state legislature should “look very closely at the option of decertifying the 2020 presidential election,” a statement said. step that GOP leaders reiterated they will not make and impartial lawyers have said it is illegal.
The release of researcher Michael Gableman’s 136-page “interim report” comes amid a nationwide effort by the GOP to reshape the election following President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.
Much of Gableman’s report attacked millions of dollars in funding from a Mark Zuckerberg-backed foundation aimed at increasing voter turnout, with the bulk of the money going to five Democrat-dominated cities. Gableman said the money amounted to “illegal bribery”. Three courts have recognized the subsidies as legal in the past year.
His report also criticized the state’s handling of nursing home ballots and absentee ballots during the pandemic. He advised dismantling the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission that the Republicans had created.
The report was met with two-pronged criticism.
Republican Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke immediately rejected the call to decertify the election, saying it was a “silly message.”
“Still not legal under Wisconsin law,” Steineke tweeted. In addition, it would have no practical impact as there is no constitutional way to remove a sitting president except by impeachment or incapacity. Fools message. Focus on the future.”
Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, tweeted that Gableman was promoting a “crazy conspiracy theory.”
She tweeted that the certification was “IMPOSSIBLE. NOT LEGAL.”
The report outlined ways Gableman believed Biden’s win could be revoked, but it also said there would be no legal ramifications.
“It wouldn’t change who the current president is, for example,” the report said.
Gableman, a former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court judge who said before he was appointed that the election had been stolen from Trump, presented highlights of the report before the Assembly’s Election Commission. He first revealed that he had voted for Trump.
“You bet I did,” he said during a back and forth with a Democratic lawmaker.
Attorney Jeffrey Mandell, who represents the mayor of Green Bay in a lawsuit against a Gableman subpoena, rejected the report.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything new in this report, although it’s clear that Michael Gableman is taking the most fringe and extreme arguments from election deniers,” Mandell said. “This report and Mr Gableman’s presentation are a disgrace. This process must come to an end soon.”
Biden defeated Trump by just under 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, a victory that has passed recounts, multiple state and federal lawsuits, an audit by the impartial Legislative Audit Bureau, and a report from the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.
An Associated Press review of Wisconsin and other battlefield states also found far too little fraud to tip the election for Trump.
The report, paid for with $676,000 in taxpayers’ money, was first to be filed in October but delayed after mayors and state and local election officials filed multiple lawsuits to block subpoenas issued to them. The officials said they were willing to meet publicly to discuss the election, but not behind closed doors with Gableman.
Those lawsuits are still pending, which is why Gableman said his investigation cannot be concluded.
“Of course we’re not done yet,” Gableman said. He said he was negotiating a contract extension.
Gableman said he had spent about $360,000 on the investigation so far and issued 90 subpoenas, but no one with information about how elections are going has spoken to him.
Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos ordered the Gableman probe under pressure from Trump and conservatives who mistakenly believed the Wisconsin election had been stolen. Trump on Tuesday encouraged people to watch the hearing where Gableman presented the results of his report.
“I had no other goal in mind to find the truth,” Gableman said. “And while we’re not quite there yet, we’re getting there.”
Gableman advised dismantling the bipartisan election commission that founded the Republican-controlled legislature in 2016, calling it “hopelessly incompetent.” Republican candidates for governor are also campaigning to abolish the commission, a move that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders oppose.
“I will not be part of any effort, and will do everything possible to stop any effort, to put politicians in charge of who wins or loses the election,” Steineke tweeted during Gableman’s testimony.
Gableman also said that more than $10 million in grants awarded to Wisconsin cities by Zuckerberg-funded The Center for Tech and Civic Life amounted to illegal bribery and an “impermissible and partisan attempt to cast the vote.”
Three courts in the past year, along with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, have dismissed claims that the subsidies were illegal.
Gableman said he hoped the report’s recommendations would be used by lawmakers to make changes before the session ends next month. But Vos said last week, ahead of what was expected to be the final day of the meeting, that he expected no action on the recommendations for the 2022 midterm elections.
The legislature passed a package of election laws last week, based largely on recommendations from the impartial audit. Evers is expected to veto all of them.
