Evers vetoes election bills as Republicans question presidential election that has repeatedly been upheld
MADISON - Gov. Tony Evers vetoed election bills Tuesday that would have required Wisconsinites to fill out more paperwork to vote absentee and said county officials should refuse efforts from a Republican lawmaker to seize their ballots and voting machines.
Evers had long signaled he would veto the six measures, which he and other Democrats have said would make it harder for people to vote.
“In recent years, we (have been) used as a petri dish for Republican plans to undermine democracy. Well, not anymore. Not today. Not anymore today. Not as long as I’m governor of the great state of Wisconsin,” Evers said at a ceremony in the Capitol rotunda.
He vetoed the bills days after a Republican lawmaker attempted to seize ballots and voting machines in Brown and Milwaukee counties. Evers questioned the validity of subpoenas issued by Republican Rep. Janel Brandtjen of Menomonee Falls and said county election officials should refuse to comply with them.
"The answer would be hell no," he told reporters.
Republicans who control the Legislature said the bills would have promoted confidence in elections. Only a handful of cases of potential voter fraud were identified following the November 2020 election.
"The governor just turned his back on important election integrity bills that, had he signed (them) would have gone a long way to prove to the people of Wisconsin that protecting the integrity of our elections matters more than appeasing progressive Madison and Milwaukee special interest groups," said a statement from state Senate President Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield.
The bills Evers vetoed would have required voters to fill out two forms instead of one to vote absentee, added restrictions on who can return completed absentee ballots,required elderly and disabled voters to provide IDs to vote absentee in most cases andprohibited clerks from correcting defects on absentee ballot envelopes.
Other bills vetoed would have created a backup system for voting in nursing homes and required nursing home administrators to notify relatives when special voting deputies will visit the facility. Another would have allowed election observers to sit or stand within 3 feet of poll workers during recounts.
Another bill he vetoed would have required municipalities that livestream their counting of ballots to record it and save it for 22 months. Other election records must be retained for that amount of time.
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Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester said the bills would have standardized voting procedures.
"While he claims these bills are 'anti-democracy,' his actions speak louder than words. He is satisfied with the status quo and refusing to improve future elections," Vos said in a statement.
Evers in June vetoed a bill that would have prohibited counties and municipalities from applying for or accepting grants from private organizations. Conservatives have pushed back against more than $10 million in grants to Wisconsin municipalities distributed by the Center for Tech and Civic Life. The center's funding came from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, and most of the money went to the state's largest, liberal cities.
Vetoes come as conservatives demand broader election audit
The vetoes come as Republicans conduct two reviews of the presidential election. Recounts in Milwaukee and Dane counties and a string of court rulings confirmed Joe Biden narrowly defeated Donald Trump in Wisconsin.
One review is being conducted by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau. The other is being overseen by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who has claimed the election was stolen despite evidence showing it was conducted properly.
Some Republicans are trying to go further. Brandtjen on Friday issued subpoenas as the chairwoman of the Assembly Elections Committee that she said would force Brown and Milwaukee counties to hand over their ballots, voting machines and other records and hardware.
Brandtjen is attempting to launch a review of ballots similar to one in Arizona that has sparked controversy. That review is being conducted by a firm named Cyber Ninjas that has never before examined election results.
Evers said seizing ballots and voting machines in the way Arizona did would make the election review "outrageously invisible." Recounts in Wisconsin can be observed by the public, but Arizona's review included tight limits on who could visit the coliseum where ballots were being examined.
"You see what’s going on in Arizona. It's a clown show," Evers said, noting the Arizona review included a frequently mocked effort to search for bamboo fibers in ballots to check a baseless theory that ballots were smuggled into Arizona from Asia.
A memo from the nonpartisan Legislative Council suggests Brandtjen's subpoenas are invalid because they have not been signed by Vos or Assembly Chief Clerk Ted Blazel.
Brandtjen insisted in a news release Monday that she had the power to issue the subpoenas on her own. Her claim was shot down 24 hours later in a second memo from the Legislative Concil that emphasized the only way to issue valid legislative subpoenas was uunder a law that requires the signatures of Vos and Blazel.
Michael Maistelman, an attorney who frequently represents Democrats, said Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson should not abide by the subpoena he received.
Maistelman said he would tell Christenson that he should "tell Rep. Brandtjen to go pound sand and send her an invoice for wasting your time."
Christenson said county attorneys were reviewing Brandtjen's demand for documents.
Brandtjen's efforts have drawn support from Republican Reps. Dave Murphy of Greenville and Timothy Ramthun of Campbellsport.
Ramthun, who has invoked a theme from the QAnon conspiracy theory to promote the ballot review, said Friday in a Facebook video that he would be attending an election symposium in South Dakota hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Lindell has offered convoluted claims of election hacking that cybersecurity experts have called ludicrous.