Gableman
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Friday fired Michael Gableman, marking an end to the more than $1 million taxpayer-funded, GOP-ordered review that has failed to uncover any evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
A day after telling the Wisconsin State Journal he wanted the election review to reach its “natural conclusion,” Vos, who hired Gableman last summer to lead the probe, ended the state’s contract with Gableman and closed the Office of Special Counsel headed by the former state Supreme Court justice.
Gableman’s firing comes three days after Vos narrowly defeated his primary opponent Adam Steen, who was endorsed by both Gableman and former President Donald Trump.
Vos
“After having many members of our caucus reach out to me over the past several days, it is beyond clear to me that we only have one choice in this matter, and that’s to close the Office of Special Counsel,” Vos said in a statement issued first to The Associated Press.
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In an interview with WISN-12, Vos said he sent Gableman a letter on the matter, adding he hasn’t personally spoken with the former justice in weeks.
“I really don’t think there’s any need to have a discussion,” Vos said. “He did a good job last year, it kind of got off the rails this year and now we’re going to end the investigation.”
Vos said his goal now is to help Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels defeat Democratic Gov. Tony Evers this November and pass a slew of election bills Evers vetoed last legislative session.
Vos hired Gableman at a cost of $676,000, though legal fees and other court costs have pushed the price tag to more than $1.1 million — all of which will ultimately fall on taxpayers. Gableman was paid more than $100,000 to lead the review.
‘Farce’ from start
“The investigation was a farce from the beginning and did nothing but waste taxpayer dollars, demonize our local clerks and election officials, and further sow misinformation and doubt in our democratic systems,” Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, said in a statement. “I’m relieved the Office of the Special Counsel is closed, but this action from Speaker Vos today is far too little, far too late.”
Vos told the Wisconsin State Journal on Thursday several state Republicans wanted to see Gableman’s review come to “a natural conclusion,” but at the time still planned to caucus next Tuesday to decide the fate of the review.
“I would have fired his keister a long time ago,” said Sen. Kathleen Bernier, R-Chippewa Falls, who chairs the Senate elections committee. Bernier, who is not seeking another term this year, has long criticized the election review.
As to why Gableman had remained under contract for so long, “Robin may not have fired him prior to the primary for political reasons and I don’t blame him,” Bernier said, clarifying that she was only speculating about Vos’ intentions.
Gableman did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Trump’s lie
Facing pressure from Trump, who continues to promote the lie of a stolen 2020 presidential election, Vos unveiled plans to embark on the election review at the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s annual convention in June 2021.
But while Vos launched the review at Trump’s behest, the former president’s opinion of Vos has soured in recent weeks due to the speaker’s refusal to entertain Trump’s calls to decertify the results of the 2020 presidential election — something that cannot happen under state law or the U.S. Constitution.
A recount, court decisions and multiple reviews have affirmed that President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes. A report from the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau last year found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election but made several recommendations for improvements.
A brief history
The review was initially intended to conclude by the end of last year, but Gableman himself admitted in June — while providing testimony in one of four public records lawsuits related to the probe — that he spent the first several months of his efforts getting up to speed on Wisconsin elections.
He also attended a South Dakota event hosted by MyPillow CEO and election denier Mike Lindell billed as presenting “irrefutable” proof that Chinese-backed hackers helped steal the 2020 election for Biden. Gableman later said he was “very disappointed with the lack of substance to back up those claims.” He also traveled to Arizona that month to observe the widely discredited election audit conducted by Cyber Ninjas.
“He couldn’t help himself and in the end he was going to rallies, he was attending political events which clearly looked like there was a partisan tinge to the investigation,” Vos said Thursday. “We stopped most of that, but then here we are where he does not just attend a political event but chooses to be involved in a very partisan way and then lie about it.”
In March, Gableman recommended the Legislature take the legally impossible step of decertifying the results. Two weeks later he described the proposal as a “practical impossibility” in a private memo to Vos.
Vos paused the probe two months later to allow time for pending lawsuits related to the review to play out in court and halved Gableman’s monthly salary to $5,500.
Gableman’s most recent misstep came days before Tuesday’s primary, when he recorded a robocall for Steen, an election denier who was seeking to oust Vos in the 63rd Assembly District, claiming that Vos “never wanted a real investigation.”
“I never said we weren’t serious about the investigation,” Vos said Thursday. “Frankly, if you ask any Democrat and most Republicans in the state, they think I was pretty serious in spending the money and time and resources that we did. So for him to lie about it, that’s kind of an unforgivable situation where you trust somebody because of their integrity and then at the end they lie.”
Vos ultimately won by about 260 votes, according to unofficial results.
Speaker’s timing
“It’s astonishing that in a matter of weeks, a campaign emerged that almost unseated the most powerful Republican in Wisconsin state government,” said UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky. “If Gableman wants to continue having influence, he’s certainly laid the groundwork for that because he has fans in the party and he has the backing of Donald Trump.”
Several state Democrats, including Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, applauded Gableman’s firing, but also pointed out the timing of Vos’ decision.
“There were zero consequences for Gableman’s buffoonery, mismanagement of state dollars, brazen violations of open records laws, temper tantrums, and constant lying — until he attacked Robin Vos politically,” Wikler said in a statement.
It’s unclear how the end of Gableman’s contract impacts the several ongoing lawsuits related to the probe. All told, four lawsuits have been filed against Gableman, Vos and the state Assembly over records requests related to the probe. Another pending lawsuit in Waukesha County relates to whether Gableman has the authority to demand that the mayors of the state’s five largest cities and other officials be jailed for not cooperating with his subpoenas.
Gableman issued subpoenas to local and state election officials, the mayors of the state’s five largest cities and two companies that make vote-counting systems, Election Systems & Software and Dominion Voting Systems. Many of the subpoenaed parties have rejected Gableman’s requests for in-person meetings or documents, while the former state Supreme Court justice has also withdrawn some requests, including one filed with immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera Action.
Vos’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the pending lawsuits.
Coverage of Michael Gableman and the 2020 elections investigation
Michael Gableman will get $44K to lead GOP's presidential election investigation
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos plans to pay former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman $44,000 to lead a probe of 2020 presidential election results in Wisconsin.
Vos announced in May that he plans to hire three retired police officers to review the election. He announced at the state Republican convention on June 26 that Gableman will oversee the investigation. The Assembly chief clerk’s office on Friday released a contract between Gableman and Vos that calls for paying Gableman $11,000 in taxpayer dollars every month between July and October.
Other contracts The Associated Press obtained show the investigators will receive $9,600 each over three months. Vos has signed two of those contracts thus far.
Democrat Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by 20,000 votes to win Wisconsin in 2020. No evidence of any widespread fraud has emerged, but Republicans continue to insist the results were tainted.
In addition to Vos’ investigation, the GOP has passed a number of bills tightening absentee voting rules and ordered the Legislative Audit Bureau to review the election.
All that hasn’t been enough to satisfy Trump. The former president sent Vos and other Republican legislative leaders a letter on the eve of the state convention accusing them of covering up election fraud.
Gableman asks court again to jail mayors if they don't comply with newest petition
After stating last month he’s not trying to jail mayors, the Republican-appointed investigator tasked with reviewing Wisconsin’s 2020 election filed another petition Friday that would do just that to the mayors of Madison and Green Bay — and now a list of city and election staff — if they don’t comply with a lengthy list of demands.
Conservative former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman on Friday filed yet another petition in Waukesha County Circuit Court against the two mayors, this time adding Racine Mayor Cory Mason, the city clerks from Madison and Green Bay, staff from the Wisconsin Elections Commission and city of Milwaukee employees.
Genrich
The petition seeks emails, voting machine information and other election-related documents. If the city staff, election workers and mayors fail to provide the documents and attend depositions, Gableman is again asking the courts to “order the respondents to be incarcerated until such time as they comply.”
The petition is largely the same as the one filed in December against Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich. The primary difference is the additional respondents.
In a January memo, the attorney representing Gableman told the court that his intent was to force the mayors to testify, not jail them.
Rhodes-Conway
But Rhodes-Conway doesn’t see it that way. She said Friday night that Gableman’s “’investigation’ has once again gone off the rails.”
“After saying he wanted to arrest me, then saying he didn’t, Gableman once again is asking the courts to arrest me and eight other public officials,” Rhodes-Conway said. “It’s an awfully bold move for someone we don’t even know is authorized to conduct an investigation.”
The others listed in the latest petition include Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl, Green Bay City Clerk Celestine Jeffreys, Wisconsin Elections Commission chair Ann Jacobs, Wisconsin Elections Commission employee Sarah Linske, state Division of Enterprise Technology director Trina Zanow, and city of Milwaukee employees Hannah Bubacz and David Henke.
Witzel-Behl
It’s unclear what prompted the latest petition, but the document states that Linske, Zanow, Henke, Bubacz and Jacobs failed to appear at recent depositions to testify.
“At least in our case, and I believe the other municipalities, we were told that nobody needed to show up for the deposition,” Madison City Attorney Michael Haas said.
The petition also states that the Wisconsin Elections Commission failed to provide the documents required in a subpoena.
Gableman issued subpoenas in October seeking election records from the state’s five largest cities and demanding their mayors submit to questioning, even though mayors don’t play any role in conducting elections.
He later backed off those subpoenas, but in early December filed petitions in Waukesha County asking that the county sheriff force Rhodes-Conway and Genrich to answer his questions under the October subpoenas. Those petitions, called writs of attachment, can lead to jail for people who are found in contempt for not complying with a subpoena.
Among the demands in the petition are lists of people who were “deactivated” as a voter, a list of serial numbers of computers or other electronic devices used in the election, and any emails concerning the election from nearly 50 different people and organizations.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has allocated $676,000 in taxpayer money for the Gableman-led, one-party review of the election, which is focused on some of the procedures voters and clerks relied on in casting and processing ballots. Vos has said the review could cost more, and he has not said when it might be finished or what additional expenses might accrue.
A recount and court decisions have affirmed that President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes. Similarly, reviews of the election by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty found no evidence of widespread fraud, but did lead to recommendations on how elections can be improved.
An analysis by The Associated Press found only 31 potential cases of voter fraud in Wisconsin’s 2020 election, which represents less than 0.15% of Biden’s margin of victory. In 26 of the 31 cases, prosecutors declined to bring charges after conducting a review.
The 2020 election is over. Here’s what happened (and what didn’t)
The 2020 election was “the most secure in American history,” according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which coordinates the nation’s election infrastructure.
While a handful of voters risked going to prison by attempting to vote twice or in the name of a dead relative, as happens in any election, no evidence of widespread fraud has ever been produced in Wisconsin or elsewhere.
Yet, many continue to question some of the practices clerks relied on to encourage eligible voters to cast ballots and make sure their votes were counted amid the first election in more than 100 years held during a pandemic.
The Wisconsin State Journal has covered every twist and turn of this debate in scores of stories. But here are a few that offered some broader context about what happened, and didn't happen, in the election of 2020.
The state has multiple, overlapping safeguards aimed at preventing ineligible voters from casting ballots, tampering with the ballots or altering vote totals.
Nothing in the emails suggests there were problems with the election that contributed in any meaningful way to Trump's 20,682-vote loss to Joe Biden.
"Despite concerns with statewide elections procedures, this audit showed us that the election was largely safe and secure," Sen. Rob Cowles said Friday.
The grants were provided to every Wisconsin municipality that asked for them, and in the amounts they asked for.
"Application of the U.S. Department of Justice guidance among the clerks in Wisconsin is not uniform," the memo says.
YORKVILLE — The Racine County Sheriff’s Office announced in a Thursday morning news conference that it has identified eight cases of what it believes to be election fraud at a Mount Pleasant nursing home.
The memo states that state law gives the Audit Bureau complete access to all records during an audit investigation and federal law and guidance does not prohibit an election official from handing over election records.
Drop boxes were used throughout Wisconsin, including in areas where Trump won the vast majority of counties.
Thousands of ballot certifications examined from Madison are a window onto how elections officials handled a pandemic and a divided and unhelpful state government.
"I don't think that you instill confidence in a process by kind of blindly assuming there's nothing to see here," WILL president and general counsel Rick Esenberg said.
The Associated Press reviewed every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvan…
The report is the latest to show that there was not widespread fraud in Wisconsin.
The clear insinuation was that someone not qualified to conduct an election improperly influenced these vulnerable voters. But the Wisconsin State Journal could not confirm the data.
The turnout at nursing homes in Brown, Kenosha, Milwaukee and Racine counties in 2020 was not much different from the turnout in 2016.
Watch now: Michael Gableman presents findings of 2020 election review
Gableman report suggests 2020 election can be decertified, calls for dismantling elections commission
Claiming some nursing home residents cast ballots without knowing what they were doing, and repeating complaints about grants from a liberal organization to help administer the 2020 election, the former state Supreme Court justice leading a GOP review of the 2020 election said Tuesday the Legislature “ought to take a very hard look” at decertifying the state’s presidential election — something experts say is a legal and constitutional impossibility.
In a sweeping critique of current election rules, Michael Gableman also called for the “elimination and dismantling” of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission after it instructed clerks in 2020 that they did not need to send poll workers into nursing homes to assist with absentee voting after many were turned away due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“At best, WEC is hopelessly derelict of duty,” Gableman told the Assembly elections committee in a three-hour presentation of his 136-page “interim report” from his ongoing one-party review. The report reiterates past GOP criticisms of the state’s presidential election, including that millions of dollars of private grants allocated to cities to help administer the election amid the pandemic constituted bribery — a claim courts have rejected.
After eight months, Michael Gableman, standing, told the committee he expects his investigation of the 2020 election will continue.
The commission’s nonpartisan administrator, Meagan Wolfe, denounced the report, saying it was based on mischaracterizations and that almost every item flagged by the review has already been litigated or addressed.
“The opinions in the Special Counsel’s latest interim report were fixated on topics that have been thoroughly addressed,” Wolfe said. “The integrity of the November 2020 election, and of the WEC, has been shown time and time again through court cases and previous investigations.”
A recount and court decisions have affirmed that President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes. Reviews by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty found no evidence of widespread fraud. Multiple court rulings have also found no evidence of irregularities.
A small percentage of voters and witnesses made mistakes on their absentee ballot certificates in 2020. Here are some examples of the kinds of errors that were either allowed or corrected by the clerk in order to permit the ballot to be counted.
Further, the results of the 2020 election have been confirmed by county canvassing boards, recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, post-election audits by local and state election authorities and a voting equipment audit by the elections commission.
Gableman indicated that his review, for which Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has allocated $676,000 in taxpayer money, is far from complete. He said he continues to speak with Vos about extending the contract, which expired at the end of December. The eight-month review has been plagued by legal challenges against multiple subpoenas issued by Gableman.
The former justice’s lengthy, meandering and at times openly partisan attacks on elections commission staff and Democratic appointees underscored to critics the one-sided nature of the investigation.
“This circus has long surpassed being a mere embarrassment for our state,” Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement. “From the beginning, it has never been a serious or functioning effort, it has lacked public accountability and transparency, and it has been a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Decertification
Republican lawmakers and legislative attorneys have repeatedly said overturning the election after it was certified by the state and Congress would be illegal and impossible. And in his report, Gableman makes clear that his purpose is not to challenge the state’s certification. But an appendix does “sketch how that might be done,” he said.
“It is clear that the Wisconsin Legislature could lawfully take steps to decertify electors in any presidential election, for example in light of violations of state election law that did or likely could have affected the outcome of the election,” according to the report.
UW-Madison political science professor and elections administration expert Kenneth Mayer said the claim is meaningless.
“Even if the Legislature did pass some sort of ‘decertification’ now it would have no legal effect,” he said. “Once the electors have cast their ballots, and they have been counted in Congress, that’s the end of it.”
Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, has repeatedly rejected efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“In a world where partisan divides are deep & seemingly anything can be justified as long as it results in retaining power, handing authority to partisan politicians to determine if election fraud exists would be the end of our republic as we know it,” Steineke tweeted.
In a world where partisan divides are deep & seemingly anything can be justified as long as it results in retaining power, handing authority to partisan politicians to determine if election fraud exists would be the end of our republic as we know it. 3/
— Jim Steineke 🇺🇦 (@jimsteineke) March 1, 2022
Following the hearing, committee chair Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, and member Rep. David Murphy, R-Greenville, did not rule out the possibility of pursuing decertification, though Murphy said “that bar needs to be extremely high.”
“To undo an election would be extremely detrimental to our republic. This is a very destabilizing act,” Murphy said. “On the other hand, elections that are stolen, that’s also destabilizing for the republic so we have to look at this with an open mind from both directions.”
Gableman’s report comes weeks after Rep. Timothy Ramthun, R-Campbellsport, launched a campaign for governor focused largely on claims of widespread fraud and a desire to take back the state’s 10 electoral college votes already certified for Biden. Other Republicans in the race — former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and anti-establishment candidate Kevin Nicholson — have also lobbed criticism at the 2020 election’s administration, but have not openly called for decertifying the results.
Voting deputies
Gableman took special aim at the elections commission’s decision to exempt clerks from the requirement that they send poll workers, known as special voting deputies, into care facilities in 2020, showing several videos of attorney Erick Kaardal questioning nursing homes residents who evidently voted but seemed to have trouble understanding questions he was asking them about the election.
The commission’s guidance was issued in March 2020 shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared. The directive remained in place for the November 2020 presidential election and the February 2021 primary.
John Sauer, CEO of LeadingAge Wisconsin, which represents nursing homes, said there are “instances in the report that, if true, would certainly warrant further investigation.” But, he said, “even if a few of the examples cited turn out to be factual, we have to remember this was a very unusual circumstance, where the pandemic forced a suspension of the use of special voting deputies.”
Attorney Erick Kaardal asks a nursing home resident who voted absentee in November 2020 about the election in this video played for the Assembly elections committee. The video suggested the resident must have had help filling out her ballot.
Sauer noted the Gableman report said investigators vetted 24 nursing homes in Dane County, but the county has only 18, according to the state Department of Health Services.
The videos Gableman showed appeared to call into question whether the people interviewed, in some cases appearing confused or uninformed, should have been allowed to vote. But under election law, only a judge — not an elections clerk or a special voting deputy — can reject a person’s right to register to vote after finding the person is incompetent.
Recommendations former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman makes in his "interim investigative report" for changing Wisconsin election laws.
“Simply being forgetful or appearing to be confused doesn’t mean that person can’t formulate their opinion on who they choose to vote for,” Sauer said. “If there’s not a determination, then the assumption is that person is competent and able to cast a ballot.”
Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell criticized the videos, which he described as “using seniors as political props,” adding that families concerned a relative may be incompetent should have a judge make that finding.
“You wouldn’t want special voting deputies to be determining that on their own,” he said.
Private grants
Gableman also contends that the private grants by the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life, which were distributed around the state but went primarily to the state’s five largest cities, were aimed at boosting turnout in areas more likely to go for Biden.
In taking the money, Gableman said, Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay engaged in what he called “election bribery,” defined in state law as accepting “anything of value,” such as money, to “induce any elector” to “go to or refrain from going to the polls” or “vote or refrain from voting.”
His report also points to provisions in the CTCL and the cities’ “Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan” that, among other things, encourage the use of ballot drop boxes and reaching out to “historically disenfranchised” voters such as racial minorities and the poor, “which not-coincidentally, matched that of the Biden-voter profile.”
A Wisconsin State Journal review of the CTCL grants found that the money was spread around to about 214 municipalities, while the five largest cities received two to four times more money, per capita, than smaller cities.
At the same time, no community that asked for money from the group was denied, with communities in 39 of the state’s 72 counties receiving grants, including ones won by Trump.
A state Legislative Audit Bureau survey also found that drop boxes were common across Wisconsin, appearing in 24 to 54 municipalities in each of seven different regions of the state, including in the northeast and northwest where Trump won the vast majority of counties.
The 2020 election was “the most secure in American history,” according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructu…
The state’s anti-election bribery law also specifies other things that also cost money that are aimed at helping people vote but don’t constitute bribery, such as giving employees paid time off to vote, and driving people to the polls.
The conservative Thomas More Society on Tuesday released its own private review of the 2020 election, which also alleges the CTCL grants constitute bribery and raises questions surrounding special voting deputies at nursing homes.
The separate review was conducted on behalf of the Wisconsin Voter Alliance, one of a handful of groups that unsuccessfully sued to overturn the results of the state’s 2020 presidential election. The organization shares office space in Brookfield with Gableman, according to lease documents, and the group’s president, Ron Heuer, as well as Kaardal, are members of Gableman’s team.
State Journal reporters Chris Rickert, Alexander Shur and David Wahlberg contributed to this report.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect a correction. A previous version misstated the reason why Skaalen Retirement Services in Stoughton shredded four absentee ballots in the 2020 election. It was because the residents decided they didn’t want to vote. None of the residents at the nursing home at the time had been found by a judge to be incompetent.
Top 10 Wisconsin political stories of 2021 (based on what you, the readers, read)
2021 was another big year in Wisconsin politics. Sen. Ron Johnson said some things. Voters elected a new state superintendent. Gov. Tony Evers and Republicans clashed over mask mandates. Michael Gableman threatened to jail the mayors of Madison and Green Bay. Here are 10 political stories you, the readers, checked out in droves.
Since the start of the outbreak, Gov. Tony Evers has issued multiple public health emergencies and a series of related orders.
Sen. Ron slammed the impeachment over the weekend as “vindictive and divisive,” and possibly a “diversionary operation” by Democrats to distract from security lapses at the U.S. Capitol.
"I wouldn’t run if I don’t think I could win," said Johnson, who is undecided on a re-election bid.
The board had previously not required masks in schools after some in the public voiced opposition.
With a new order announced, Republicans may be forced to start the process all over again to vote down the governor's emergency order and accompanying mask mandate, but the most likely outcome appears to be an eventual court decision.
Fort McCoy officials acknowledge there were initial problems with food supply, but that and other issues are being addressed.
The idea is in its infancy and all options, including declining to pursue anything, are on the table.
Gableman has asked the court, which plans to take up the matter on Dec. 22, to compel the two mayors to meet with him.
Deborah Kerr said she has also voted for Republicans and tells GOP audiences on the campaign trail for the officially nonpartisan race that she is a "pragmatic Democrat."
Limbaugh died Wednesday at 70.
Here are 26 ways Michael Gableman is seeking to change Wisconsin's election laws
In a report released Tuesday, former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman makes 26 recommendations for changing state election laws. They are broken down into four categories:
To improve transparency
- Eliminate the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Gableman contends the agency’s staff “remains deeply connected to special interest groups and fails to adequately respond to voter and clerk complaints.”
- Eliminate or reduce fees for voter registration data “to put all citizens on equal footing, and to allow for citizens to help keep the system up to date.”
- Maintain a single statewide voter registration database and make it publicly available and secure.
- Create an office to audit and oversee elections. The office would be distinct from the Legislative Audit Bureau but would conduct “periodic and random auditing of elections in various jurisdictions.”
- Standardize a process for contesting elections after they are over including allowing losers to audit “a small number of wards for a nominal cost, or for free.”
- Prohibit provisions in government contracts with election-related vendors that allow vendors to release “sensitive voter data” and ignore “governmental requests for information, such as valid criminal or legislative subpoenas.” Contracts should not allow vendors to block the release of data government has paid for.
- Minimize early and absentee voting. “It is evident that widespread use of absentee and absentee-in-person voting renders public participation and oversight of counting impossible.”
- Encourage in-house technical support, including “a single statewide machine system or single-client vendor.”
- End participation with the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which compares voter information with other government databases to flag people who may have moved. Gableman portrayed the organization as partisan and said the same work can be done through “bilateral agreements with states.”
To improve accountability
- Provide a way for private citizens to challenge the accuracy of the state’s voter rolls.
- Change who certifies presidential electors from the head of the elections commissioner and the governor to “electors in a politically accountable body, such an association of elected county clerks.”
- Provide a way to challenge presidential elections before and after they are certified. “Such processes might establish administrative or legal rights, or establish opportunities to raise or expedite decertification procedures on the floor of the Assembly or Senate.”
- Prohibit outside funding and staff in elections administration.
For the Wisconsin Elections Commission
- Comply with Legislative Audit Bureau recommendations.
- Enter into data-sharing agreements with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Department of Health Services and Wisconsin Department of Corrections to verify voter information.
- Provide additional training to clerks.
For municipal clerks
- Learn more about state laws and codes. “Many clerks have expressed … that they are under the impression that WEC guidance is binding, even when they believe such guidance (say, on drop boxes) is unlawful.”
- Make independent assessments about what to do “in circumstances where WEC guidance is contrary to law.”
- Carefully review outside contracts.
- Prohibit staff from engaging in get-out-the-vote efforts.
- Consider a robust voter roll review. “Even in election years, federal law does not prohibit Wisconsin officials from removing ineligible voters from the rolls.”
- Maintain a list of Election Day personnel.
- Catalog all absentee ballots sent out and match these with ballots returned.
- Prohibit “curing” absentee ballot certificates by filling in missing address information, for example.
Michael Gableman's numbers on nursing home voting proven wrong again
Residents of nursing homes in five Wisconsin counties did not vote in unusually high numbers in the last presidential election — contrary to what the leader of a partisan review of the election has asserted.
Nor was voter turnout significantly different from turnout in the 2016 election at nursing homes in four of the counties for which the Wisconsin State Journal obtained voting data.
The newspaper’s findings again throw cold water on claims by conservative former state Supreme Court justice and GOP special counsel Michael Gableman and supporters that widespread voter fraud was responsible for President Joe Biden’s 21,000-vote victory in Wisconsin. A report on the election by the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau, recounts in the state’s two largest counties, and multiple courts have found no evidence to support their claims.
Nevertheless, during a presentation March 1 before the state Assembly’s elections committee to discuss his most recent findings, Gableman showed videos of purported nursing home residents who appeared to be incapable of understanding the voting process but had, in fact, voted in the 2020 election.
He then pointed to figures in his 136-page “second interim investigative report” claiming 100% of the registered voters in nursing homes in heavily Democratic Dane and Milwaukee counties, and in Racine County, home to the Democratic-leaning city of Racine, cast ballots in 2020. In Kenosha and Brown counties, home to the Democratic-leaning cities of Kenosha and Green Bay, the figures were 97% and 95%, respectively, he said.
Earlier that year, the Wisconsin Elections Commission told municipal clerks they were not required to send special election workers into nursing homes to assist with the election because of the pandemic. Gableman’s clear insinuation was that someone not qualified to conduct an election improperly influenced these vulnerable voters or, worse, cast ballots on their behalf.
A State Journal review of municipal poll books last month showed a far different story in Dane County. Poll books, sometimes in electronic form and sometimes on thousands of pages of paper, allow the public to see who was registered on the date of an election and which of those voters cast ballots in that election.
In only one of Dane County’s 18 state-licensed nursing homes was turnout 100%: Nazareth Health and Rehab Center in Stoughton, where all 12 people listed as registered in the poll book had their ballots tallied. Turnout among all the others ranged from 42% to 91%.
Gableman’s turnout numbers for nursing homes in the other four counties are proving equally false.
Using data requested through the Wisconsin Election Commission’s Badger Voters service — which allows political campaigns and the public to obtain lists of registered voters and voting activity by address — the State Journal calculated voter turnout at all 52 state-licensed nursing homes in Brown, Kenosha, Milwaukee and Racine counties in which people were recorded as having voted in the Nov. 3, 2020, election.
It could find only one where turnout in 2020 was 100%: the Brown County Community Treatment Center — Bayshore Village in Green Bay, where eight of eight registered voters voted.
Otherwise, turnout at the nursing homes ranged from 20% to 94%. Average turnout for Milwaukee County nursing homes was 80%, as it was for Brown. Turnout in Kenosha facilities was 72% and in Racine it was 73%.
Such levels are not out of line with what the state as a whole saw in 2020, when turnout was 72%, according to the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, and nearly 10% more people cast ballots than in 2016.
What’s more, the nursing home figures overstate turnout in the facilities because they reflect the number of votes cast divided by the number of registered voters, not the larger voting-age population, which the Elections Commission uses as the denominator in its turnout calculations. It’s also long been true that senior citizens are more likely to vote than the population at large.
Nor was the 2020 turnout at nursing homes in Brown, Kenosha, Milwaukee and Racine counties much different from that in 2016. In fact, three homes in those areas saw 100% turnout, with 41 of 41 registered voters casting ballots in an election won by former President Donald Trump, who praised Gableman at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday and whose baseless claims of a stolen election Gableman has also taken up.
‘Incorrect and deceptive’
Gableman and his team did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Nor was the newspaper able to obtain comment from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, who appointed Gableman, or the Assembly elections committee chair Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, who has called for a “full, cyber-forensic audit” of the election.
Wisconsin Voter Alliance president Ron Heuer, who has said he compiled Gableman’s turnout numbers when he worked for him from about Oct. 1 to mid-December, also didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Kewaunee County-based Wisconsin Voter Alliance touts itself as “promoting and protecting the integrity” of Wisconsin’s voting system and has unsuccessfully sued to overturn Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election results.
In a statement, the ranking Democrat on the Assembly elections committee, Rep. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, called Gableman’s report “misleading” and said “the only way that they didn’t choose to intentionally mislead the public is if they have no idea how this works.”
“Mike Gableman should not have made an assertion about nursing home turnout based on partial data, and should have reached out to the actual experts — like the Wisconsin Elections Commission — that could have explained how this works,” he said. “Instead, he released a report that was incorrect and deceptive.”
Heuer said last month that he used the state’s voter database as of August 2021 to look at whether every registered voter at every nursing home in the five counties voted in the November 2020 election, although he erroneously included other kinds of group living arrangements, such as independent living for elderly people, in his calculations.
A spreadsheet of his findings provided to Spreitzer’s office, which provided it to the State Journal, shows columns for the number of active registered voters and number of votes cast in the 2020 election, often resulting in turnout figures that are inexplicably well above 100%. Spot checks of the data on registered voters and votes cast don’t match what the State Journal found in poll books.
Heuer has declined requests to go into detail about how he arrived at his turnout figures.
Nursing home votes, 2020
Number of ballots cast compared to number of registered voters at nursing homes in Brown, Dane, Kenosha, Milwaukee and Racine counties in 2020.
| County | Facility | Ballots cast | Registered voters | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brown | Anna John Resident Centered Care Community, 2901 S. Overland Road, Oneida | 10 | 15 | 67% |
| Brown | Brown County Community Treatment Center - Bayshore Village, 3150 Gershwin Drive, Green Bay | 8 | 8 | 100% |
| Brown | Crossroads Care Center of West Green Bay, 1760 Shawano Ave., Green Bay | 10 | 11 | 91% |
| Brown | Edenbrook of Green Bay, 2961 St. Anthony Drive, Green Bay | 7 | 8 | 88% |
| Brown | Grancare Nursing Center, 1555 Dousman St., Green Bay | 12 | 15 | 80% |
| Brown | Green Bay Health Services, 1640 Shawano Ave., Green Bay | 9 | 12 | 75% |
| Brown | Odd Fellow Home, 1229 S. Jackson St., Green Bay | 15 | 16 | 94% |
| Brown | Rennes Health and Rehab Center - De Pere, 200 S. Ninth St., De Pere | 10 | 19 | 53% |
| Brown | Woodside Lutheran Home, 1040 Pilgrim Way, Green Bay | 16 | 18 | 89% |
| Dane | Badger Prairie Health Care Center, 1100 E. Verona Ave., town of Verona | 32 | 39 | 82% |
| Dane | Capital Lakes Health Center, 333 W. Main St., Madison | 82 | 90 | 91% |
| Dane | Crossroads Care Center of Sun Prairie, 41 Rickel Road, Sun Prairie | 5 | 12 | 42% |
| Dane | Four Winds Manor, 303 S. Jefferson St., city of Verona | 13 | 22 | 59% |
| Dane | Grace Healthcare of Oregon, 354 N. Main St., Oregon | 10 | 17 | 59% |
| Dane | Heartland Country Village, 634 Center St., Black Earth | 7 | 11 | 64% |
| Dane | Ingleside Manor, 407 N. Eighth St., Mount Horeb | 16 | 32 | 50% |
| Dane | Nazareth Health and Rehab Center, 814 Jackson St., Stoughton | 12 | 12 | 100% |
| Dane | Oak Park Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 718 Jupiter Drive, Madison | 10 | 15 | 67% |
| Dane | Oak Park Place of Nakoma, 4327 Nakoma Road, Madison | 14 | 16 | 88% |
| Dane | Oakwood Lutheran Homes Association, 6201 Mineral Point Road, Madison | 14 | 19 | 74% |
| Dane | Oakwood Village East Health and Rehabilitation Center, Madison | 2 | 3 | 67% |
| Dane | Skaalen Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, 400 N. Morris, Stoughton | 41 | 49 | 84% |
| Dane | SSM Health St. Mary's Care Center, 3401 Maple Grove Drive, Madison | 51 | 64 | 80% |
| Dane | Sun Prairie Health Care Center, 228 W. Main St., Sun Prairie | 17 | 25 | 68% |
| Dane | The Bay at Belmont Health and Rehabilitation Center, 110 Belmont Road, Madison | 24 | 31 | 77% |
| Dane | The Villa at Middleton Village, 6201 Elmwood Ave., Middleton | 8 | 15 | 53% |
| Dane | Waunakee Manor Health Care Center, 801 S. Klein Dr., Waunakee | 26 | 30 | 87% |
| Kenosha | Brookside Care Center, 3506 Washington Road, Kenosha | 30 | 37 | 81% |
| Kenosha | Clairidge House, 1519 60th St., Kenosha | 15 | 20 | 75% |
| Kenosha | Crossroads Care Center of Kenosha, 8633 32nd St., Kenosha | 22 | 26 | 85% |
| Kenosha | Grande Prairie Health and Rehabilitation Center, 10330 Prairie Ridge Blvd., Pleasant Prairie | 34 | 48 | 71% |
| Kenosha | Kenosha Estates Rehab and Care Center, 1703 60th St., Kenosha | 4 | 10 | 40% |
| Kenosha | The Bay at Sheridan Health and Rehabilitation, 8400 Sheridan Road, Kenosha | 4 | 12 | 33% |
| Kenosha | The Bay at Waters Edge Health and Rehabilitation, 3415 N. Sheridan Road, Kenosha | 16 | 17 | 94% |
| Kenosha | The Manor of Kenosha, 3100 Washington Road, Kenosha | 36 | 53 | 68% |
| Milwaukee | Allis Care Center, 9047 W. Greenfield Ave., West Allis | 37 | 40 | 93% |
| Milwaukee | Aria at Mitchell Manor, 5301 W. Lincoln Ave., West Allis | 33 | 36 | 92% |
| Milwaukee | Ascension Living Alexian Village Milwaukee, 9255 N. 76th St., Milwaukee | 24 | 26 | 92% |
| Milwaukee | Autumn Lake Healthcare at Greenfield, 5790 S. 27th St., Milwaukee | 17 | 21 | 81% |
| Milwaukee | Bedrock HCS at Glendale, 1300 W. Silver Spring Drive, Glendale | 47 | 55 | 85% |
| Milwaukee | Bria of Trinity Village, 7500 W. Dean Road, Milwaukee | 12 | 22 | 55% |
| Milwaukee | Chi Franciscan Villa, 3601 S. Chicago Ave., South Milwaukee | 26 | 34 | 76% |
| Milwaukee | Clement Manor Health Care Center, 3939 S. 92nd St., Greenfield* | 11 | 14 | 79% |
| Milwaukee | Crossroads Care Center of Milwaukee, 3216 W. Highland Blvd., Milwaukee | 6 | 16 | 38% |
| Milwaukee | Eastcastle Place Bradford Terrace Convalescent Center, 2505 E. Bradford Ave., Milwaukee | 90 | 102 | 88% |
| Milwaukee | Edenbrook Lakeside, 2115 E. Woodstock Place, Milwaukee | 18 | 21 | 86% |
| Milwaukee | Glendale Care and Rehab Center LLC, 6263 N. Green Bay Ave., Glendale | 1 | 5 | 20% |
| Milwaukee | Hales Corners Care Center, 9449 W. Forest Home Ave, Hales Corners | 13 | 15 | 87% |
| Milwaukee | Jewish Home and Care Center, 1414 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee | 19 | 24 | 79% |
| Milwaukee | Luther Manor, 4545 N. 92nd St., Milwaukee* | 12 | 17 | 71% |
| Milwaukee | Lutheran Home, 7500 W. North Ave., Wauwatosa | 72 | 89 | 81% |
| Milwaukee | Maple Ridge Health Services, 2730 W. Ramsey Ave., Milwaukee | 15 | 18 | 83% |
| Milwaukee | Maplewood Center, 8615 W. Beloit Road, West Allis | 22 | 34 | 65% |
| Milwaukee | Mercy Health Services, 2727 W. Mitchell St., Milwaukee | 3 | 6 | 50% |
| Milwaukee | Milwaukee Catholic Home, 2330 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee* | 41 | 54 | 76% |
| Milwaukee | Saint John's on the Lake, 1858 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee* | 109 | 124 | 88% |
| Milwaukee | Southpointe Healthcare Center, 4500 W. Loomis Road, Greenfield | 26 | 29 | 90% |
| Milwaukee | St. Anne's Salvatorian Campus, 3800 N. 92nd St., Milwaukee | 53 | 75 | 71% |
| Milwaukee | St. Camillus Health Center, 10101 W. Wisconsin Ave., Wauwatosa | 59 | 76 | 78% |
| Milwaukee | Sunrise Health Services, 3540 S. 43rd St., Milwaukee | 3 | 7 | 43% |
| Milwaukee | The Bay at St. Ann Health and Rehabilitation Center, 2020 S. Muskego Road, Milwaukee | 13 | 17 | 76% |
| Milwaukee | The Villa at Bradley Estates, 6735 W. Bradley Road, Milwaukee | 68 | 92 | 74% |
| Milwaukee | Wheaton Franciscan HC - Terrace at St. Francis, 3200 S. 20th St., Milwaukee | 4 | 6 | 67% |
| Milwaukee | Willowcrest Health Services, 3821 S. Chicago Ave., South Milwaukee | 35 | 41 | 85% |
| Racine | Lakeshore at Siena, 5643 Erie St., Racine | 16 | 20 | 80% |
| Racine | Oak Ridge Care Center, 1400 8th Ave., Union Grove | 11 | 13 | 85% |
| Racine | Ridgewood Care Center, 3205 Wood Road, Racine | 42 | 53 | 79% |
| Racine | The Bay at Burlington Health and Rehabilitation, 677 E. State St., Burlington | 2 | 10 | 20% |
| Racine | The Villa at Lincoln Park, 1700 C A Becker Drive, Racine | 14 | 23 | 61% |
| Racine | Wisconsin Veterans Home - Boland Hall, 21425 E. Spring St., Union Grove | 61 | 81 | 75% |
| * Includes assisted living | ||||
| Source: Wisconsin State Journal research | ||||
'Weird nose ring ... loves nature': Michael Gableman memo characterizes election workers as Democrats
New documents posted online by Michael Gableman underscore efforts by the former state Supreme Court justice to gather information on the partisan leanings of public election employees as part of his GOP-ordered review of the 2020 election, including details on a Milwaukee staffer he determined to be “probably a Democrat” because she has a nose piercing and sometimes colors her hair.
The memo, titled “cross pollinators” and posted on the Office of Special Counsel website Thursday, lists details about a Milwaukee geographic information system analyst, including that she “has a weird nose ring,” has colored hair in some of her photos, “loves nature and snakes,” plays video games and lives with a boyfriend but is not married to him. The unsigned memo also notes that the employee has “no overt signs of rampant partisanship.”
The documents were posted on the same day that a Dane County judge ordered Gableman to stop deleting public records related to the GOP-ordered review into the 2020 election — after court filings revealed that Gableman’s office regularly destroys records deemed “irrelevant or useless.”
A small percentage of voters and witnesses made mistakes on their absentee ballot certificates in 2020. Here are some examples of the kinds of errors that were either allowed or corrected by the clerk in order to permit the ballot to be counted.
Among the documents recently posted on Gableman’s website, the “cross pollinators” memo underscores the former justice’s fixation on the partisan leanings of elections officials in the state. Gableman was hired last year by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, to review the election at a cost of $676,000 to taxpayers.
Others listed in the memo include Milwaukee Election Commission director Claire Woodall-Vogg, who is referred to as “Voggy” in another memo; Madison and Green Bay city clerks Maribeth Witzel-Behl and Celestine Jeffreys; and Racine clerk and treasurer Tara Coolidge, among others. Witzel-Behl’s name is misspelled “Maribeth Wetzel” in the report, and Jeffreys’ is misspelled “Jefferies.”
In a recent discussion with WTAQ-AM, Gableman criticized the clothing choice of the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s nonpartisan administrator, Meagan Wolfe, remarking, “black dress, white pearls, I’ve seen the act, I’ve seen the show.”
“Gableman has a bizarre fixation with the jewelry and appearance of the women he is supposedly investigating,” Wisconsin Elections Commission Democratic chair Ann Jacobs tweeted Thursday. “It’s sleazy and gross and has no place in any investigations by the government.”
Gableman’s office had not responded to a request for comment Thursday.
Deleted records
Indiana lawyer James Bopp, who is representing Gableman in an ongoing lawsuit filed by liberal watchdog group American Oversight seeking records related to the election review, wrote in an April 8 letter to the organization that the Office of Special Counsel routinely evaluates documents, including text messages and emails, to determine whether the record is of use to the ongoing probe. Documents deemed relevant to the investigation are downloaded and kept.
“If the document is irrelevant or useless to the investigation, the (office) deletes that document,” Bopp wrote in the letter, which was filed in court Wednesday. “In light of this standard procedure, the (office) routinely deletes documents and text messages that are not of use to the investigation. An irrelevant or useless document includes documents that the (office) is not intending to further investigate, and is not intending to rely upon for its recommendations or reports.”
Bopp wrote that the deletion of records ensures that the office is not overrun by irrelevant and useless documents, but an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Council back in October found that deleting such records, even by a state contractor like Gableman, violates state law.
American Oversight this week filed a request for a temporary injunction to prevent Gableman’s team from deleting records as part of an ongoing lawsuit seeking access to the documents.
Judge’s order
Dane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington ordered Gableman on Thursday to not delete or destroy any records that may be responsive to American Oversight’s original request pending further action from the court on the matter. A scheduling conference has been set in the case for Tuesday.
“If this investigation was above board, the Office of Special Counsel would have maintained and released records of its work required by law,” American Oversight senior adviser Melanie Sloan said in a statement. “Instead, it is fighting tooth and nail to hide its work from the public. This inquiry is nothing more than an attempt to prop up conspiracy theories and undermine free and fair elections.”
In the October memo, which was prepared for then-Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, Legislative Council deputy director Dan Schmidt wrote that the state’s public records law “generally applies to records created or maintained” by Gableman’s office.
In court filings, Bopp contended that the state’s public records retention law only applies to state agencies and not Gableman’s office — citing an exemption to the law provided to the state lawmakers who hired him.
“The (office) is not a state agency subject to the retention law, as it is clear that the (office) is not a ‘commission, board, department or bureau of state government,’” Bopp wrote. “Rather, it is an independent contractor contracted by the Assembly to assist in the investigation of the 2020 Election. As such, it is also not an officer for purposes of the public records retention law.”
State lawmakers are exempt from Wisconsin’s record retention law, allowing them to regularly delete records, though requested documents must be retained if they exist at the time of a formal request. Schmidt wrote in the memo that such an exemption does not apply to Gableman.
Court battles
The case is one of three records-related lawsuits filed by American Oversight against Vos, the Assembly and Gableman.
Vos and Gableman have fought back against multiple records requests from both American Oversight and news organizations, arguing that releasing such documents could undermine the ongoing review. Despite a wide array of claims made by Gableman, the former justice has so far failed to produce evidence to support claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, which saw President Joe Biden defeat former President Donald Trump in the state by about 21,000 votes.
Several judges have been unsympathetic to Republican efforts to withhold those records, with Remington last month ordering the release of hundreds of pages of documents related to Gableman’s review. Remington described the records as “much to-do about nothing.”
In a separate case, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn in March held Vos in contempt of court for failing to provide requested public documents related to the probe.
Vos has extended Gableman’s contract through the end of April, but later said he is considering rescinding subpoenas issued by the former justice so that a Republican attorney general if elected in November could file criminal charges against the subpoenaed individuals, though he did not provide specifics on what charges could be pursued.
Gableman said he had recently been contacted by officials in Vos’ office notifying him of plans to dismantle his office by the end of the month. Vos said his goal is to now focus on resolving the several pending lawsuits surrounding the former justice’s review.
Photos: Voters cast ballots throughout Madison
Meryl DiIorio casts his ballot at the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center in Madison on Tuesday. Voters around the state chose representatives for nonpartisan school and municipal offices.
Kim Lawrence places a "future voter" sticker on her son Ethan as she exits the polling place at Yahara Bay Distillery in Madison Tuesday. "He's 4½ months old, so he has a long way to go," Lawrence said.
Meryl DiIorio fills out his ballot at the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center in Madison, Wis., Tuesday, April 5, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL
Judy Hill, left, maneuvers her mother, Reta Harring, down the handicap ramp, followed by Steve Hill, after Harring cast her ballot at the Mallards Duck Blind Clubhouse in Madison on Tuesday. The family was frustrated with the long and bumpy path from the parking lot to the voting booths.
Voters fill out their ballots with a view of the baseball diamond at the Mallards Duck Blind Clubhouse Tuesday.
Daniel Braund fills out his ballot at the Mallards Duck Blind Clubhouse in Madison, Wis., Tuesday, April 5, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL
Voters exit their polling place located in Hy-Vee on East Washington Avenue in Madison, Wis., Tuesday, April 5, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL
Stef Bugasch Scopoline casts her ballot at Yahara Bay Distillery in Madison, Wis., Tuesday, April 5, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL
Chief Inspector Dena Sedlmayr, left, and volunteer poll worker Emily Temte reinstall the location banner outside of Gates of Heaven Synagogue in Madison, Wis., Tuesday, April 5, 2022. KAYLA WOLF, STATE JOURNAL
A voter enters the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center in Madison to cast a ballot Tuesday. Turnout was light in Tuesday's balloting for local offices.
Gableman documents show coordination with outside nonprofits, pushback from elections chief
Documents unveiled last week in the Republican investigation of the November 2020 election show election officials from Milwaukee and other Democratic-leaning Wisconsin cities working closely on election administration matters with various outside election-related interest groups — some with clear Democratic leanings or past connections.
But there doesn’t appear to be evidence that the coordination gave interest groups access to confidential voter information or otherwise broke state law. In fact, at one point in 11 months’ worth of email correspondence, Milwaukee’s elections chief rebuffs an attempt by one outside group to get closer to state elections records than she felt was appropriate.
Among the more than 300 files Special Counsel Michael Gableman’s office posted online last week are copies of subpoenas and other legal documents, pages of law books, drafts of Gableman’s remarks or reports, and contracts or reimbursement logs for people working for the conservative former state Supreme Court justice.
The files also contain thousands of pages of emails.
One 120-page tranche titled “Milwaukee Hearing Document” includes an 18-page table presumably created by Gableman’s office that raises questions about some of the interactions between elections officials and outsiders in the emails that follow.
“Why is the city receiving training from NVAHI on how to conduct Central Count?” reads one question in the table, referring to a Sept. 29-30 exchange about NVAHI — the National Vote at Home Institute — reportedly training Milwaukee elections workers on how to run their central location for counting ballots once polls closed on Election Day.
In another interaction highlighted in the table, Josh Goldman of the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life says in a July 28, 2020, email that his group has “a lead on an experienced elections staffer that could potentially embed with your staff in Milwaukee.” A Gableman staffer notes next to it: “Putting people on Milwaukee staff.”
The Chicago-based and Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life, or CTCL, has drawn particular scorn from Gableman, who sees it as the main player in a conspiracy among left-leaning nonprofits and Democratic activists to boost turnout in Democratic-leaning areas of the state by flooding them with money to help safely run elections during a pandemic.
The five Democratic-leaning municipalities — Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay — did get from two to four times more money per capita than other state municipalities that got the CTCL grants, but CTCL has said no one who applied for the money was denied and federal courts have ruled there is nothing illegal about outside elections funding.
‘Not comfortable’
Gableman’s investigators appear to have paid particular attention to one interaction in the documents between Claire Woodall-Vogg, Milwaukee’s elections administrator, and Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, a former Democratic activist who at the time was working for NVAHI and has become a favorite target of conservatives for his persistent efforts to insert himself into elections administration in Green Bay, including directing poll workers and asking if he could help correct missing information on absentee ballot envelopes.
The city has said employees of private election groups never had any decision-making power over the election or access to ballots, and Woodall-Vogg seemed to draw a similar line when Spitzer-Rubenstein suggested in a Sept. 16, 2020, email that nonprofit U.S. Digital Response be given a “walkthrough” of the state’s voter database, WisVote.
“It would be helpful to just understand the system and maybe the USDR folks can figure out a way to simplify something for you,” he writes.
USDR is a volunteer-driven “civic tech” nonprofit that helps government with the technology side of its various responsibilities, including running elections. Among its advisers are people who worked in the Obama administration.
Woodall-Vogg’s response is polite but definitive: “While I completely understand and appreciate the assistance that is trying to be provided, I am definitely not comfortable having a non-staff member involved in the functions of our voter database, much less recording it.”
Neither Gableman’s office, Woodall-Vogg nor Spitzer-Rubenstein responded to requests for comment for this story.
Constitutional amendment
There is nothing in state law to prohibit the kinds of funding or other help provided to state elections officials by outside groups in 2020, although Gableman has contended the CTCL grants amount to illegal election bribery.
In February, state Republicans introduced a constitutional amendment that would ban outside funding for elections and ban anyone who is not employed by state or local government from helping to carry them out.
The amendment passed the Legislature on party-line votes later that month and would need to be approved by the Legislature seated next year before going to statewide referendum. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would not be able to veto it.
The 2020 election is over. Here’s what happened (and what didn’t)
The 2020 election was “the most secure in American history,” according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which coordinates the nation’s election infrastructure.
While a handful of voters risked going to prison by attempting to vote twice or in the name of a dead relative, as happens in any election, no evidence of widespread fraud has ever been produced in Wisconsin or elsewhere.
Yet, many continue to question some of the practices clerks relied on to encourage eligible voters to cast ballots and make sure their votes were counted amid the first election in more than 100 years held during a pandemic.
The Wisconsin State Journal has covered every twist and turn of this debate in scores of stories. But here are a few that offered some broader context about what happened, and didn't happen, in the election of 2020.
The state has multiple, overlapping safeguards aimed at preventing ineligible voters from casting ballots, tampering with the ballots or altering vote totals.
Nothing in the emails suggests there were problems with the election that contributed in any meaningful way to Trump's 20,682-vote loss to Joe Biden.
"Despite concerns with statewide elections procedures, this audit showed us that the election was largely safe and secure," Sen. Rob Cowles said Friday.
The grants were provided to every Wisconsin municipality that asked for them, and in the amounts they asked for.
"Application of the U.S. Department of Justice guidance among the clerks in Wisconsin is not uniform," the memo says.
YORKVILLE — The Racine County Sheriff’s Office announced in a Thursday morning news conference that it has identified eight cases of what it believes to be election fraud at a Mount Pleasant nursing home.
The memo states that state law gives the Audit Bureau complete access to all records during an audit investigation and federal law and guidance does not prohibit an election official from handing over election records.
Drop boxes were used throughout Wisconsin, including in areas where Trump won the vast majority of counties.
Thousands of ballot certifications examined from Madison are a window onto how elections officials handled a pandemic and a divided and unhelpful state government.
"I don't think that you instill confidence in a process by kind of blindly assuming there's nothing to see here," WILL president and general counsel Rick Esenberg said.
The Associated Press reviewed every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvan…
The report is the latest to show that there was not widespread fraud in Wisconsin.
The clear insinuation was that someone not qualified to conduct an election improperly influenced these vulnerable voters. But the Wisconsin State Journal could not confirm the data.
The turnout at nursing homes in Brown, Kenosha, Milwaukee and Racine counties in 2020 was not much different from the turnout in 2016.
Michael Gableman's election investigation paused, pay cut in half amid legal fights
An investigation into the 2020 election in battleground Wisconsin will be paused while five lawsuits play out, and the salary for the former state Supreme Court justice leading it will be cut in half, the Assembly speaker said Wednesday.
However, the investigation could be revived if courts rule that elections officials and others must comply with the subpoenas issued by Michael Gableman, said Robin Vos, Wisconsin’s top state Republican lawmaker, who hired Gableman using taxpayer money.
Gableman’s review was originally supposed to end in October, but Vos has granted extensions, the latest of which was through April 30. Last month, under pressure from Donald Trump, Vos allowed the contract to go forward indefinitely.
Vos, R-Rochester, said Wednesday that was to deal with five ongoing lawsuits, three of which relate to open records and two are about his powers as special counsel. Gableman’s taxpayer-funded salary will be cut from $11,000 to $5,500 a month, but the overall $676,000 budget for the work will not grow, Vos said.
Two of the lawsuits challenge Gableman’s power to subpoena those involved with running elections in Wisconsin. Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who represents the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, sued Gableman, arguing that any interviews with state officials must be conducted in public, not behind closed doors as Gableman wants.
Gableman filed a separate lawsuit seeking to jail the mayors of Madison and Green Bay along with any others who he says don’t comply with his subpoenas. Those officials have said they have complied. A judge has scheduled a July 11 hearing in that case.
“We have now been investigating for almost a year and we will potentially restart the investigation if we have the subpoenas served,” Vos said.
Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, said the lawsuits could be resolved if Gableman agreed to conduct the interviews in public. She said it was “unfortunate that taxpayers are going to continue to pay a very high salary” to Gableman to fight lawsuits that could be easily ended.
Vos said he hoped those cases would wrap up quickly, but the appeals could last well into next year.
The overall budget for Gableman’s taxpayer-funded investigation remains unchanged at $676,000, Vos said. About $500,000 of that budget has been spent to date on the investigation and legal fees. Gableman has turned in two interim reports that did not include any evidence to show there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden.
His latest report included easily disproven claims about voter turnout in nursing homes. A Wisconsin State Journal review found turnout was not unusual in nursing homes.
Jacobs said Gableman is not running an investigation but a “political endeavor meant to drum up false claims of voter fraud.”
Biden carried Wisconsin by nearly 21,000 votes, an outcome that has survived recounts, partisan and nonpartisan reviews and numerous lawsuits. Vos ordered the Gableman investigation under pressure from Trump and other Republicans who allege the election was stolen. The probe has faced bipartisan criticism.
Gableman continues to work out of his suburban Milwaukee office with one aide, and that has been the extent of his staff for months, Vos said.
Gableman and Vos have suffered a series of defeats in court in open records lawsuits filed by the liberal watchdog group American Oversight. Two different judges in the past month have ordered that Gableman not delete records related to the investigation and that Vos be sure that doesn’t happen. Vos has been found in contempt for not producing records, and there is a June 10 hearing to determine whether Gableman should be found in contempt.
Wisconsin’s review is one of only a handful of GOP efforts to look back at the 2020 election that remain alive.
A much-ridiculed investigation wrapped up in September in Arizona without offering proof to support Trump’s claims of a stolen election. Similar efforts are being pursued by Republicans in the presidential battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, also won by Biden.
And in Utah, a panel of majority-GOP lawmakers in December approved an audit of the state’s election system. Unlike Arizona, the Utah effort will be conducted by nonpartisan legislative auditors and is not focused solely on 2020.
The 2020 election is over. Here’s what happened (and what didn’t)
The 2020 election was “the most secure in American history,” according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which coordinates the nation’s election infrastructure.
While a handful of voters risked going to prison by attempting to vote twice or in the name of a dead relative, as happens in any election, no evidence of widespread fraud has ever been produced in Wisconsin or elsewhere.
Yet, many continue to question some of the practices clerks relied on to encourage eligible voters to cast ballots and make sure their votes were counted amid the first election in more than 100 years held during a pandemic.
The Wisconsin State Journal has covered every twist and turn of this debate in scores of stories. But here are a few that offered some broader context about what happened, and didn't happen, in the election of 2020.
The state has multiple, overlapping safeguards aimed at preventing ineligible voters from casting ballots, tampering with the ballots or altering vote totals.
Nothing in the emails suggests there were problems with the election that contributed in any meaningful way to Trump's 20,682-vote loss to Joe Biden.
"Despite concerns with statewide elections procedures, this audit showed us that the election was largely safe and secure," Sen. Rob Cowles said Friday.
The grants were provided to every Wisconsin municipality that asked for them, and in the amounts they asked for.
"Application of the U.S. Department of Justice guidance among the clerks in Wisconsin is not uniform," the memo says.
YORKVILLE — The Racine County Sheriff’s Office announced in a Thursday morning news conference that it has identified eight cases of what it believes to be election fraud at a Mount Pleasant nursing home.
The memo states that state law gives the Audit Bureau complete access to all records during an audit investigation and federal law and guidance does not prohibit an election official from handing over election records.
Drop boxes were used throughout Wisconsin, including in areas where Trump won the vast majority of counties.
Thousands of ballot certifications examined from Madison are a window onto how elections officials handled a pandemic and a divided and unhelpful state government.
"I don't think that you instill confidence in a process by kind of blindly assuming there's nothing to see here," WILL president and general counsel Rick Esenberg said.
The Associated Press reviewed every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvan…
The report is the latest to show that there was not widespread fraud in Wisconsin.
The clear insinuation was that someone not qualified to conduct an election improperly influenced these vulnerable voters. But the Wisconsin State Journal could not confirm the data.
The turnout at nursing homes in Brown, Kenosha, Milwaukee and Racine counties in 2020 was not much different from the turnout in 2016.
Michael Gableman appeals contempt order after scathing rebuke from Dane County judge
The former state Supreme Court Justice leading the GOP-ordered review into Wisconsin’s 2020 election has appealed a Dane County judge’s decision to hold him in contempt after a heated courtroom appearance.
Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington last week held the Office of Special Counsel headed by Michael Gableman in contempt, offering a scathing rebuke of the former justice’s behavior in court earlier this month, when Gableman accused the judge of being a partisan “advocate.”
Remington ordered Gableman be fined $2,000 a day until he complies with ongoing public records requests and directed Gableman’s “sneering” conduct in Remington’s courtroom to the office that regulates attorneys and judges in Wisconsin to take possible action against his license to practice law.
Attorneys for Gableman late last week filed an appeal of Remington’s order, seeking review by a three-judge panel in Wisconsin’s District 2 Court of Appeals in Waukesha.
Gableman’s attorneys wrote in the court filing that Remington erred in the June 16 hearing by denying his motion to adjourn the contempt hearing, seeking to force Gableman to testify without legal counsel present and “ordering sanctions grossly disproportionate to the violation.”
Remington’s order was made after Gableman refused to provide testimony in a June 10 hearing. It also came two days after Remington cautioned the former justice’s staffer Zakory Niemierowicz, whom Gableman’s attorneys have described as the sole legal custodian of the requested records, to consider seeking legal counsel, noting that remedial sanctions for contempt could include jail time.
“Gableman refused to testify without counsel, and after a heated exchange with the court, J. Remington mis-characterized Gableman’s objection as invoking ‘Fifth Amendment’ rights against self-incrimination and found OSC in contempt,” Gableman’s attorneys wrote in the filing.
At Remington’s order, the Dane County Clerk of Courts forwarded his decision and the transcript of the hearing to the Office of Lawyer Regulation, which may be the first such referral for a former state Supreme Court justice who is practicing law after leaving the high court.
There are limits to the public availability of complaints filed against lawyers, which are confidential until the Office of Lawyer Regulation, which investigates the complaints, asks the state Supreme Court to act, and the court later issues some form of discipline.
Discipline can be anything from a private reprimand to revocation of a lawyer’s license to practice.
Gableman is expected to be back in court on Thursday as part of another case filed by liberal watchdog group American Oversight seeking records related to the ongoing probe.
American Oversight has filed three open records cases against Gableman, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and the Assembly seeking public records related to Gableman’s review of the 2020 election.
Gableman was hired a year ago by Vos, under pressure from Donald Trump to investigate the former president’s loss to President Joe Biden by just under 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. While the probe was originally allocated $676,000 in taxpayer funds, invoices have shown that ongoing court battles surrounding the review have pushed the cost to nearly $900,000.
A recount, court decisions and multiple reviews have affirmed that President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes. Only 24 people out of nearly 3.3 million who cast ballots have been charged with election fraud in Wisconsin.
Top 10 Wisconsin political stories of 2021 (based on what you, the readers, read)
2021 was another big year in Wisconsin politics. Sen. Ron Johnson said some things. Voters elected a new state superintendent. Gov. Tony Evers and Republicans clashed over mask mandates. Michael Gableman threatened to jail the mayors of Madison and Green Bay. Here are 10 political stories you, the readers, checked out in droves.
Since the start of the outbreak, Gov. Tony Evers has issued multiple public health emergencies and a series of related orders.
Sen. Ron slammed the impeachment over the weekend as “vindictive and divisive,” and possibly a “diversionary operation” by Democrats to distract from security lapses at the U.S. Capitol.
"I wouldn’t run if I don’t think I could win," said Johnson, who is undecided on a re-election bid.
The board had previously not required masks in schools after some in the public voiced opposition.
With a new order announced, Republicans may be forced to start the process all over again to vote down the governor's emergency order and accompanying mask mandate, but the most likely outcome appears to be an eventual court decision.
Fort McCoy officials acknowledge there were initial problems with food supply, but that and other issues are being addressed.
The idea is in its infancy and all options, including declining to pursue anything, are on the table.
Gableman has asked the court, which plans to take up the matter on Dec. 22, to compel the two mayors to meet with him.
Deborah Kerr said she has also voted for Republicans and tells GOP audiences on the campaign trail for the officially nonpartisan race that she is a "pragmatic Democrat."
Limbaugh died Wednesday at 70.
Michael Gableman deleted records, worked at public library, in early months of election review
Gableman
Michael Gableman spent the first two months of his review of the 2020 election using a now-deleted personal email account and working out of a public library, and regularly discarded records even after requests for documents from his office had been submitted under the state's open records law, the former state Supreme Court justice testified Thursday.
Gableman, who provided roughly 90 minutes of testimony, said he spent most of July and August last year getting familiar with Wisconsin elections and attending a pair of meetings, including one hosted by MyPillow CEO and election denier Mike Lindell. Gableman said he tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after the August meeting in South Dakota.
The case before Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn is one of three open records lawsuits filed by liberal watchdog group American Oversight and focuses on whether Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, properly handled records requests related to Gableman's probe.
Ultimately, Bailey-Rihn said Gableman's "contradicting testimony" showed that "whatever work that was done was minimal, that the taxpayers were paying $11,000 a month to do."
"The documents were disposed of, which may or may not be a separate issue, and frankly I think at this point there’s no more documents to be gained from this," she said after Gableman's testimony.
Bailey-Rihn ruled that Vos will not be penalized for a previous contempt order related to the case, but said she will decide later if Vos should face penalties related to how his office handled requests for records related to Gableman's review. A hearing has been scheduled for July 28 in the matter.
Gableman was hired a year ago by Vos, under pressure from Donald Trump to review the election the former president lost to President Joe Biden by just under 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. While the probe was originally allocated $676,000 in taxpayer funds, invoices have shown that ongoing court battles surrounding the review have pushed the cost to nearly $900,000.
A recount, court decisions and multiple reviews have affirmed that Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin. Only 24 people out of nearly 3.3 million who cast ballots have been charged with election fraud in Wisconsin.
Vos earlier this year paused Gableman's probe to allow time for five pending lawsuits related to the review to play out in court and halved Gableman's monthly salary from $11,000 to $5,500.
In testimony Thursday, Gableman said the early months of his review were spent getting up to speed on Wisconsin elections at a public library in New Berlin because he does not own a personal computer. He also spent time locating an office in Brookfield and recovering from a COVID-19 infection following the South Dakota event that Lindell billed as presenting "irrefutable" proof that Chinese-backed hackers helped steal the 2020 election for Biden.
Gableman said in testimony he was "very disappointed with the lack of substance to back up those claims."
“On Friday, the 13th of August, I drive right from South Dakota to the emergency room ... where I get eventually diagnosed with COVID," Gableman said. "I spend the next two weeks solidly in bed ... with very, very unpleasant symptoms, and then the third week I’m half in bed and half able to get up, so if you want to characterize it as no work, I guess you can."
Gableman also used his personal Yahoo email account during the first two months of his review, before he received an official state email address. Gableman said he had a staffer delete the personal account sometime in August, after a records request was filed, and said those documents cannot be recovered.
Asked by Bailey-Rihn if he searched the personal account for records responsive to the request, Gableman said he believed so, but also noted he was "unaware of a way to search a discontinued email."
"Do I specifically recall going back? I don’t, but I would have looked at every email account available to me, every device that was available to me. I would have looked for any records," Gableman said.
While Gableman's staffer Zakory Niemierowicz said in his deposition that he and several of those working in the Office of Special Counsel, including Gableman, communicate using Signal, an app that allows for the immediate deletion of messages, Gableman said Thursday he used the app briefly, "but I didn't like it."
Another question, raised by American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg, related to Gableman's trip last year to Arizona to observe its widely ridiculed election review. Westerberg pointed to records indicating that five hotel rooms were booked for the trip, but Gableman said only three people accompanied him — attorneys Andrew Kloster, Carol Mathias and Stuart Karge.
"There was the four of us, that’s all," Gableman said. "No fifth person.”
Gableman's testimony Thursday stood in stark contrast to his courtroom appearance two weeks ago when he lashed out at Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington while refusing to answer questions in a separate public records case.
Gableman was much more reserved in his responses to Bailey-Rihn and Westerberg, and at one point borrowed the judge's reading glasses to read from a document.