Republicans in the Wisconsin State Senate seem ready to remove the administrator of the Election Commission this week, as reported by the Washington Examiner.
The members of the state Senate elections committee, in a 3-1 party-line vote, rejected the reappointment of Meagan Wolfe, the nonpartisan leader of the Elections Commission.
Ms. Wolfe has led the agency since 2018, but her leadership faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers following the 2020 presidential election.
At the time, Former President Donald Trump and his GOP allies asserted that he had won in Wisconsin. In June, the Wisconsin Elections Commission faced a tie vote on Wolfe’s reappointment.
Democratic members cited a 2022 state Supreme Court ruling that allows officials to remain in their roles indefinitely as long as they don’t resign when their term concludes.
Confronted with Wolfe’s persistence in her position despite the reappointment vote, state Senate Republicans initiated proceedings to oust her from office.
The Monday proposal to remove Wolfe apparently gained traction due to GOP members’ concerns about her confirmation getting Senate approval.
In late August, a Senate committee gathered public input on Wolfe’s appointment, underscoring the GOP’s disputes with election officials over the 2020 election outcomes.
“I believe it is fair to say that no election in Wisconsin history has been as scrutinized, reviewed, investigated and reinvestigated as much as the November 2020 general election,” Wolfe said in a June letter to lawmakers.
“The outcome of all those 2020 probes produced essentially the same results: the identification of a relatively small number of suggestions for procedural improvements, with no findings of wrongdoing or significant fraud.”
The Republican party selected Michael Gableman, a former conservative Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, to lead a comprehensive year-long inquiry into the 2020 election results.
His investigation purportedly failed to uncover any evidence of fraudulent election conduct.
