MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Senate voted Thursday to fire the battleground state’s nonpartisan top elections official ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Democrats say the vote was held improperly and that lawmakers don’t have the authority to oust Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe. The issue is expected to end in a legal battle.
The fight over who will lead the elections agency stems from persisting lies about the 2020 election and creates instability ahead of the 2024 presidential race for the state’s more than 1,800 local clerks who actually run elections.
Wolfe has been the subject of conspiracy theories and threats from election skeptics who falsely claim she was part of a plan to rig the 2020 vote in Wisconsin, and GOP leaders cited concerns from those skeptics in justifying Thursday's 22-11 vote along party lines.
“Wisconsinites have expressed concerns with the administration of elections both here in Wisconsin and nationally," said Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu. “We need to rebuild faith in Wisconsin's elections.”
Election observers have voiced concerns that replacing Wolfe with a less experienced administrator or continuing to dispute her position could create greater instability in a high-stakes presidential race where election workers expect to face unrelenting pressure, harassment and threats.
“Wisconsin Republicans’ attempt to illegally fire Wisconsin’s elections administrator without cause today shows they are continuing to escalate efforts to sow distrust and disinformation about our elections, denigrate our clerks, poll workers, and election administrators, and undermine basic tenets of our democracy, including the peaceful transfer of power," Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement.
Evers called for the state Department of Justice to represent Wolfe and help keep her in office. Meanwhile, Republicans introduced a resolution calling on the elections commission to appoint an interim administrator to replace her.
The bipartisan elections commission deadlocked in June on a vote to nominate Wolfe for a second four-year term. Three Republicans voted to nominate her and three Democrats abstained in the hopes of preventing a nomination from proceeding to the Senate for confirmation.
Senate rejection would normally carry the effect of firing her, but without a four-vote majority nominating Wolfe, a recent state Supreme Court ruling appears to allow her to stay in office indefinitely as a holdover.
“This will go into the legal system, and I’m confident that we will prevail,” Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard said ahead of Thursday’s vote.
Senate Republicans in June pushed ahead with forcing a vote despite not receiving a nomination from the commission. LeMahieu said he interpreted the commission's 3-0 vote as a unanimous nomination. The Legislature's nonpartisan attorneys and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul have both contested that interpretation, saying the law is clear that an elections administrator must be nominated by at least four commissioners.
Wolfe did not attend a Senate committee hearing on her reappointment last month, citing a letter from Kaul saying “there is no question” that she remains head of the elections agency. That hearing instead became a platform for some of the most prominent members of Wisconsin's election denialism movement to repeat widely debunked claims about the 2020 election.
Many of the same skeptics were present in the Senate gallery on Thursday, cheering when the vote passed.
Biden defeated Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020, an outcome that has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review and numerous state and federal lawsuits.
Many Republican grievances against Wolfe are over decisions made by the elections commission and carried out by Wolfe, as she is bound by law to do. In addition to carrying out the decisions of the elections commission, Wolfe helps guide Wisconsin’s more than 1,800 local clerks who actually run elections.
Wolfe became head of the elections commission in 2018, after Senate Republicans rejected her predecessor, Michael Haas, because he had worked for the Government Accountability Board. GOP lawmakers disbanded the agency, which was the elections commission's predecessor, in 2015 after it investigated whether former Republican Gov. Scott Walker's campaign illegally worked with outside groups.
Since the 2020 election, some Republicans have floated the idea of abolishing or overhauling the elections commission.
Wolfe has worked at the elections commission and the accountability board for more than 10 years. She has also served as president of the National Association of State Election Directors and chair of the bipartisan Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which helps states maintain accurate voter rolls.
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Harm Venhuizen is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Harm Venhuizen, The Associated Press
