Wisconsin General Assembly Votes To Investigate 2020 Presidential Election

March 24, 2021




Written by Carmine Sabia
OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author's opinion

The 2020 presidential election continues to be the elephant in the room and there are still many Americans who believe shenanigans took place, particularly in swing states.
Georgia has already taken steps to create laws that would protect the sanctity of the vote and now another swing state, Wisconsin, is determined to get to the bottom of what happened in 2020.
On Tuesday the Republican led Wisconsin General Assembly voted to pass a resolution to investigate the 2020 presidential election that Joe Biden was certified the winner of, The Associated Press reported.
The resolution, opposed by Democrats, is needed to give the committee authorization if it decides to issue subpoenas to compel testimony and gather documents, said Rep. Joe Sanfelippo. He is vice-chairman of the Assembly elections and campaign committee that would conduct the probe.
Biden defeated Donald Trump by fewer than 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. The election outcome was affirmed by a partial recount and several lawsuits brought by Trump and his allies alleging wrongdoing were rejected by state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. No significant problems were found with the state’s voting machines after audits and recounts in both 2016 and in 2020.
The resolution authorizing the investigation passed on a 58-35 party-line vote, with all Republicans in support and all Democrats against. It passed after Republicans last month ordered an audit of the election results.
Republicans said they wanted to gather more evidence to see if laws were broken, but Democrats said they were trying to score political points, undermining the public’s faith in elections and insulting election clerks, poll workers and others who ran the election.
The resolution gives Wisconsin lawmakers subpoena power over people and records elections committee vice-chair Republican Rep. Joe Sanfelippo said, though he is hopeful that it will not be needed, WGLR reported.
“I would expect that we really don’t have to come to that,” he said to reporters Tuesday. “I can’t understand why any elected official in the state would not want to talk openly and publicly about the administration of elections in their areas.”
The resolution accuses election officials in Wisconsin of jeopardizing the election through “failing to adhere” to election laws and actually encouraging noncompliance.
“This is important because over the past year, year and a half, we’ve heard allegations of improprieties not being done, specifically state laws on the books not being followed,” Sanfelippo said.
Rep. Mark Spreitzer was also leery of using subpoenas and said they should not be used until lawmakers hear from election administrators.
“The underlying resolution makes some very serious claims,” he said as the resolution was being debated. “I take great objection to the characterization of our elected officials. That would be our clerks, our poll workers…our national guard.”
And, predictably, Democrat lawmakers in the Assembly were not thrilled about the investigation, which should make one wonder why.
“Republicans seem to be making a concerted effort with both that resolution and the vaccine bills to undermine the public’s confidence and trust in those very things; democracy and vaccine and public health at the time when we can least afford them,” Assembly minority leader Gordon Hintz said to reporters in a phone call on Tuesday.
There is already an ongoing audit of the election being done by the non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau.
“The auditors go out and look for the information, they don’t necessarily have the public hearings or receive the public input. They’re going to do the behind-the-scenes work which is very valuable,” Vos argued. “We’d like to have one that is a more public process where people can actually come in and we can do a better job investigating than just having a simple hearing.”

Wisconsin General Assembly Votes To Investigate 2020 Presidential Election - Conservative Brief