July 27, 2021

Contact: WisDems Communications (press@wisdems.org)

 

Rather Than Addressing Actual Problems, Wisconsin GOP Fights Over How to Perpetuate the “Big Lie”

MADISON, Wis. — Today, Robin Vos clarified that he was performing a forensic audit on the 2020 election to please Donald Trump and far-right extremists, saying, “Just like perhaps President Trump was misinformed about what we’re actually doing in Wisconsin, I feel like my colleague Rep. Brandtjen is misinformed about what we’re doing in Wisconsin because we’re already doing a forensic audit.”

GOP Rep. Janel Brandtjen, chairwoman of the Assembly elections committee, called for a full forensic audit on Monday and questioned whether Vos’s election review went far enough, echoing Trump’s criticisms from last month. Vos also faced criticism from OAN correspondent and Arizona election review backer Christina Bobb, who said on The Regular Joe Show that Vos’s review is “totally fake.”

Vos, who announced a review of the 2020 election run by the GOP state legislature earlier this year, plans to pay election conspiracy theorist and former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman $44,000 to oversee the WI GOP’s sham review. And one of the investigators hired by Vos, Mike Sandvick, has been promoting partisan lies about election fraud since 2008, even being banned from the polls by the Milwaukee Police Department. It’s a sham “forensic” review run by election conspiracy theorists – what more could the far right want?

There’s no doubt that Wisconsin Republicans will use every scheme imaginable to sow doubt in our elections and justify their voter suppression bills. Wisconsin Republicans recently passed several laws limiting absentee voting, sparking backlash from the disability community, and have introduced at least fourteen bills overall seeking to undermine voting rights.

A recount, a report from Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, and multiple rulings by courts in Wisconsin proved that the 2020 Wisconsin election was secure time and again. But Republicans are more focused on their political priorities than the needs of Wisconsinites.

“Despite the ongoing pandemic, the start of a new school year around the corner, and the GOP’s refusal to expand BadgerCare still leaving billions in federal dollars on the table, Republican lawmakers’ main priority remains fighting over how to investigate nonexistent voter fraud and pass more voter suppression bills,” said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Rapid Response Director Kayla Anderson. “Wisconsinites did not elect their representatives to waste taxpayer resources on politically-motivated reviews of an election that was proven to be secure by multiple law enforcement agencies. It is beyond absurd that the GOP is still rehashing this instead of focusing on building a better future for Wisconsinites.”

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