OSHKOSH — Following nearly a year of Republican elected officials undermining confidence in Wisconsin’s elections, Rep. Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) condemned the continuing attacks on Wisconsin’s democracy by Speaker Vos and other Legislative Republicans.
“Wisconsin’s elections are free, fair, secure, and accurate,” said Rep. Hintz. “But Republican elected officials have spent a year spreading the Big Lie and laying the groundwork to attack and dissolve independent agencies and justify legislative control of future elections.”
Since Donald Trump lost the presidential election in November 2020, Republicans in Wisconsin have:
- Expressed uncertainty about which presidential candidate won Wisconsin;
- Tried to certify false presidential electors;
- Participated in lawsuits to overturn the 2020 election;
- Asked the Vice President to refuse to certify presidential election results;
- Authorized multiple politically-motivated election reviews despite canvasses and recounts already confirming Wisconsin’s election results;
- Hired someone who claimed the election was stolen and admits he does not know how elections work to lead one of those efforts; and
- Demanded the resignation of the head of Wisconsin’s elections commission, who was unanimously confirmed after Republicans forced her predecessor to resign, for administering policies approved by a bipartisan commission 18 months ago.
Continued Rep. Hintz, “These efforts may have started out as fringe ideas from a couple of Republican legislators. But they have turned into continued, coordinated attacks. This strategy is not just playing out here in Wisconsin, but across the country as well.”
Slipping under the radar yesterday was a Republican legislator’s call for the state legislature to decertify Wisconsin’s presidential electors, a concept GOP gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefish has refused to reject.
Rep. Hintz concluded, “The increasing boldness and desperation of Republicans to undermine our democratic system of fair elections is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. It is a disgrace to our state, and must be rejected at every turn.”
