Speaker Robin Vos does not want another election probe, says ‘forensic audit’ already happening in Wisconsin

MADISON – A vow from the chairwoman of the Assembly elections committee to conduct a “comprehensive, forensic examination” of the 2020 election is getting pushback from the state’s top Republican and the chair of the state Elections Commission. 

Rep. Janel Brandtjen issued a statement Monday that her committee would request materials for an investigation “in the coming days,” but has not said what those would include or what the exact timeline would be.

“Voters have made it clear that they want a thorough, cyber-forensic examination of tabulators, ballot marking devices and other election equipment, which I will be helping facilitate on behalf of the committee as the chair,” Brandtjen said.

But Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Tuesday that the state’s two ongoing investigations are enough and said he didn’t know what her investigation would prove. 

“I feel like my colleague Representative Brandtjen is misinformed about what we’re doing in Wisconsin because we are already doing a forensic audit,” Vos said. “Certainly, if she wants to add extra resources from her two staff people in the office to be able to assist the investigators that we have and the audit bureau and what they’re doing, we welcome everybody to offer whatever evidence that they have.”

The Legislature is conducting two reviews of the election. Vos hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and two former law enforcement officials at taxpayer expense to review the election. The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau is also performing a review.

Vos said Gableman and the former police officers are “very well equipped to be able to handle it.” 

But critics on the right have said the effort is not doing enough. A group of state lawmakers, including Brandtjen, visited the site of Arizona’s controversial ballot audit earlier this summer. 

A small group of Wisconsinites, including one convicted of bank and mail fraud, are conducting their own review by scanning ballots in the state. 

“It is understandable that private citizens and citizen groups have been seeking to conduct their own investigations that their elected representatives have failed to do, but it is important that they be conducted in the most transparent and coordinated way possible,” Brandtjen said.

Democrats are also concerned with the effort and worry it feeds into conspiracy theories. 

“In this latest release, Republicans are finally ready to admit what this is really about: they’re displeased with the results. This is apparently justification to continue to lie about the reliability and transparency that already exists in our electoral systems,” Rep. Mark Spreitzer, a Democrat from Beloit, said on Twitter.

Cases of election fraud are rare in Wisconsin. Election officials identified just 27 potential instances of voter fraud out of 3.3 million ballots cast in the November election. 

The Wisconsin Elections Commission’s chair said Tuesday that Brandtjen’s statement that alleged there are “ghost voters” in Wisconsin was “factually incorrect.”

“It is unfortunate that Representative Brandtjen is claiming there are ‘ghost voters’ in Wisconsin when nothing could be further from the truth. She should stop spreading these wild conspiracy theories,” said commission chair Ann Jacobs, who is a Democrat. 

In her statement, Brandtjen alleged that “tens of thousands of new registrations and votes cast by individuals whose driver’s license number, name, and date of birth did not match and were subsequently removed from the state system after their votes were recorded.” 

The elections commission said voter data mismatches happen about 5% of the time but are minor typos corrected by the clerk or voter, such as a missing suffix like “Jr.” or “Sr.” or a nickname. Voters are not removed from the statewide voter database.

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