MADISON, Wis. – Today, the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted to include Tim Michels on the August ballot.

Wisconsin Democratic Party Executive Director Devin Remiker issued the following statement:

“When entering this race, Tim Michels quickly adopted the extreme language of election fraud favored by his fellow Republicans. On the campaign trail, he often talks about election integrity being a top issue and the importance of enforcing the law.

“It would have been great for Tim Michels to follow his purported values and the law when filing his nomination signatures, and the hypocrisy of Republicans and the Michels campaign should make voters think twice.

“Republicans have a history of trying to remove voters from the voter rolls or invalidate their ballots for minor alleged technical defects in the name of election integrity. At the same time, they want to dismantle the bipartisan commission and undermine free and fair elections.

“Today, Tim Michels was shown leniency for what was a technical error, but under a plain reading of Wisconsin election law, he should have been disqualified. Ultimately, he broke the law.

“The Michels campaign knew a majority of his nomination papers were wrong. They admitted as much in an affidavit. They began circulating a correct version later in the circulation period. Tim Michels is a millionaire who could have run an operation to collect enough new signatures on corrected papers, but instead, he tried to slip by the incorrect ones and did so successfully.

“Let’s hope that Tim Michels and the GOP don’t show hypocrisy this fall by trying to invalidate voters for small technical errors on their ballots that should be allowed to be corrected.

“No matter who comes out on top in the GOP primary, they will be too radical and divisive for Wisconsin. We will be focused on re-electing Governor Tony Evers, who has been a stalwart of democracy against partisan attacks and can always be trusted to do the right thing for Wisconsin.”

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