Voter Suppression/Election Integrity

[GreyhoundFan]

WI rethuglikans will stop at nothing to ensure they win, legally or not. "Wisconsin Republicans vote to fire elections director, who sues to keep her job"

Quote

MADISON, Wis. — Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate voted Thursday to fire the swing state’s top elections official, who argued lawmakers didn’t have the power to oust her and said she would stay in office. About an hour after the vote, she sued GOP lawmakers, seeking validation from the courts that she can keep her job.

The vote ignited a dispute over who is in charge of overseeing elections in a state that is expected to play a critical role in next year’s presidential contest and that may have to redraw its legislative districts within months.

The Republicans’ own lawyers, as well as the state’s Democratic attorney general, told the senators before the vote that they didn’t have the authority to remove Meagan Wolfe, the director of the state’s bipartisan elections commission. Wolfe, whose position is nonpartisan, has won praise from voting administrators across the country as well as local officials in Wisconsin.

The vote — 22-11 in favor of firing Wolfe — gives conservative critics a chance to question the legality of every action she takes until courts rule on her fate. Experts said the uncertainty could create trouble in the meantime.

“I think it’s really worrisome because we’re in the final stages of preparation for the 2024 elections,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and director of its Elections Research Center. “The elections commission is training clerks around the state and issuing guidance, so to have uncertainty about who the top administrator is going into this crucial election season, I think is a real problem.”

The move against Wolfe comes as Republican lawmakers threaten to impeach a state Supreme Court justice who gave liberals a majority on the state’s top court when she was sworn in last month. The court in the coming year is expected to determine the legality of abortion and whether to keep in place election maps that have given Republicans large majorities in the legislature.

Shortly after state senators cast their party-line votes on Wolfe’s future, she filed a lawsuit with the help of Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) and said she would continue to perform her duties while the case proceeds. Her lawsuit seeks a court order that declares she still holds her job and bars lawmakers from appointing a replacement.

“The action of the Senate today has no legal effect,” Kaul told reporters.

At a separate news conference, Wolfe expressed confidence about continuing in her job and said she welcomed having the courts decide her lawsuit. She emphasized the importance of conducting elections in a nonpartisan manner.

“The reason that they want to get rid of me for political purposes is because I will not bend to political pressure,” Wolfe said of the Republican lawmakers. “I think the political outcome they desire is to have someone in this position of their own choosing that would indeed bend to those political pressures.”

Four years ago, the GOP-dominated state Senate unanimously confirmed Wolfe, who was appointed by an elections commission consisting of three Republicans and three Democrats. Republican lawmakers largely stayed out of her way as she and the elections commission navigated how to conduct the 2020 election amid the coronavirus pandemic.

After President Donald Trump narrowly lost the state, Republican lawmakers raised complaints about the use of ballot drop boxes, absentee voting in nursing homes and other election policies. Over the next year, they consulted with conspiracy theorists and toyed with a discredited theory that lawmakers could revoke the state’s 10 electoral votes but turned up no evidence that would alter the results.

Conservatives increasingly objected to Wolfe, even as many of the state’s 1,800 town and city clerks rallied to her defense. The Wisconsin Supreme Court last year ruled state law does not allow the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, and Wolfe’s critics said the decision showed she should be fired because drop boxes were used during 2020. Her supporters disputed such attacks, noting every decision she made had support from the election commission.

Republican lawmakers found they had few options for getting rid of Wolfe — ironically because of a lawsuit they won last year that says state officials often can remain in their positions until the state Senate confirms a replacement.

Wolfe’s term as the commission director expired this summer. Republican and Democratic commissioners were united in wanting her to continue to serve but disagreed on how to make sure she could remain. The commission couldn’t reach a decision, which legislative attorneys said meant Wolfe could continue to serve because of the court decision.

Republican senators discounted their attorneys’ opinions and moved forward with the vote anyway, saying they believed they had the power to remove her. State Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R) said the Republicans were acting because they believe people don’t trust how elections are run in the state.

“If they don’t have faith in our elections, we’ve disenfranchised voters,” LeMahieu said on the Senate floor.

Despite the vote, Wolfe and her backers said she would continue to perform her duties. She faced few immediate impediments from doing so because she has the support of Gov. Tony Evers (D), whose administration can make sure she continues to get paid and maintains access to her office. Republicans could try to hire a replacement for Wolfe, but whoever they choose may not be able to obtain a key card needed to enter state office buildings.

“Wisconsin Republicans’ attempt to illegally fire Wisconsin’s elections administrator without cause today shows they are continuing to escalate efforts to sow distrust and disinformation about our elections, denigrate our clerks, poll workers, and election administrators, and undermine basic tenets of our democracy, including the peaceful transfer of power,” Evers said in a written statement.

Still, the vote gives Wolfe’s enemies a new avenue for disputing any actions she takes as the state gears up for the 2024 presidential election. Her lawsuit could quickly make its way to the state Supreme Court.

Voters in April elected Janet Protasiewicz to the high court by an 11-point margin, ending 15 years of conservative control. Protasiewicz won by championing her support for abortion rights and opposition to gerrymandering.

Democratic voters have filed a pair of lawsuits challenging district maps that have given Republicans a firm grip on the legislature. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) said if Protasiewicz did not step aside from the case, given her previous statements on the matter, he would consider impeaching her.

Protasiewicz has not said whether she will recuse herself from the case, but Democrats who spent $10 million to get her elected quickly got behind her. They began running ads against GOP lawmakers, and some Republicans have grown wary of impeaching someone who won with so much support. Vos appeared to inch away from the idea at a Tuesday news conference, but he told a radio host the next day that he would have a group of conservative former state Supreme Court members analyze when they could impeach a justice.

“We are not foaming at the mouth to have an impeachment process, but it is part of our constitutional duty,” he said.

Vos this week rolled out a new plan aimed at ending the redistricting lawsuits. For more than a decade, Vos has rejected calls to take partisan control out of redistricting, but on Tuesday he announced the Assembly would adopt legislation to have nonpartisan state workers draft maps that don’t favor one party over the other. The plan could result in new maps for 2024 — ones that Republicans hope would be more favorable to them than the ones liberals on the state Supreme Court could draw.

Vos could have a tough time getting his plan passed. Republican leaders in the state Senate haven’t said whether they would take the measure up, and Wisconsin’s Democratic governor signaled he would veto the proposal if it gets to him. For years, Evers has embraced nonpartisan redistricting but in a written statement said he couldn’t trust Republicans on the issue, noting the legislature could fire the nonpartisan mapmakers or overrule the plans they produce.

“Wisconsinites deserve a redistricting process that’s free of partisanship and interference from politicians, and it’s never been clearer that today’s Legislature cannot be trusted with that important responsibility,” Evers said in his statement.

Vos’s surprise offer and Democrats’ reaction laid bare the bizarre politics that can unfold amid fights over how to draw legislative maps. Republicans embraced an idea they had long derided, and Democrats rejected one they had long championed. They accused each other of hypocrisy, even as they ignored they had flipped positions themselves.

One Republican state representative, Ron Tusler, suggested politics was a factor when a critic told him he was getting rolled by switching his position on redistricting.

“Perhaps,” he wrote on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter. “Why do you think we are all of a sudden in favor of something that we were once against?”

 

[Ozlsn]

8 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Vos’s surprise offer and Democrats’ reaction laid bare the bizarre politics that can unfold amid fights over how to draw legislative maps.

At this point I would do it by computer set up to have a number of voters per district with confidence intervals and to take things like roads, rivers etc. into account. Although given there's not even 6 million people they could also just declare the entire state one electorate and ask people to select their top 15 candidates. If nothing else the counting would be entertaining.

[fraurosena]

Yes! Finally.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

What the actual fuck? I imagine if she was white, she would never have been arrested in the first place.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Not really about election integrity, but a perfect example of every vote counting. I’m sure the Rs will attack this election.

[Ozlsn]

Wow, that is a close election! Assume there will be a challenge and recount(s), hope it stands.

[GreyhoundFan]

These people are disgusting:

 

[Ozlsn]

"Not everyone has to have a vote". 

Sounds good, let's start with taking away his vote. I mean, these men are so emotional and irrational that I really don't see that they're stable enough to be trusted to vote, or to lead.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Ozlsn

[Ozlsn]

Alabama proposes criminalising some forms of assistance in absentee voting.

"The proposed legislation on senate bill 1 initially prohibited people other than close family members or co-habitants from helping any voter request an absentee ballot, filling out that application or ballot or returning that ballot to elections offices. The bill carves out exceptions for people with disabilities and those who cannot read or write. Receiving or giving money for these activities could be prosecuted as Class B or Class C felonies, respectively, under the proposed law."

This appears to be a solution in search of a problem:

"There has been no evidence provided to organizations, to other policy makers that this idea of ballot harvesting or problems with absentee ballots is a widespread problem in Alabama.”

She noted that a Heritage Foundation analysis found only 20 instances of fraud between 2000 and 2023. “This is a bill that is proposing incarceration and criminal penalties for a problem that doesn’t exist.”"

Mostly though it's probably the same old refrain - too many of the "wrong" people are voting, and not in the direction they want.

"Armani Bentson, a freshman at Alabama State studying political science, who attended the hearing, said, “Alabama has a history of suppressing voting rights, just so Black people will have a harsher time.” Legislation like this targets Black voters, she said. “But at the same time, it affects everyone.”"

[Howl]

Josh Marshal at Talking Points Memo has a fabulous scoop on a tranche of Ken Chesebro's communications with plans (multiple options!) to stall voting on Jan 6.  It's a long read that will delight wonk-ish hearts, but some snippets are below. 

Two Weeks of Chaos  Docs Obtained by TPM Show Trump Lawyers’ Plan To Make Jan. 6 Last For Days On End   By Josh Kovensky | February 12, 2024 10:01 a.m.

<snip>   "So, how to turn the Jan. 6 joint session from one day into 14? 

In emails and texts to several members of the Trump campaign, Chesebro proposed multiple options for how to bulldoze the ECA and achieve the goal of an extra 14 days without a certified President: 

Mike Pence could decline to open Biden electoral votes — it would be a “fairly boss move,” as Chesebro put it in one email — likely delaying the certification of Biden’s win while posing a core challenge to the ECA.

A “test case” could be filed before SCOTUS aimed at invalidating the law. It would be filed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) acting in Pence’s place as President of the Senate.

The Senate filibuster could be used as a blunt instrument to block the ECA from either being followed or being implemented on Jan. 6." 

That Grassley thing where Grassley claimed he would be presiding over the vote: 

"Failing Pence, Chesebro had another plan to get the ECA invalidated: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). As president pro tempore, the duty of presiding over the Senate would have fallen to Grassley in Pence’s absence.

Chesebro argued that Pence should recuse because of a conflict of interest — he was involved in the election."

Edited February 12 by Howl

[fraurosena]

23 hours ago, Howl said:

"Failing Pence, Chesebro had another plan to get the ECA invalidated: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). As president pro tempore, the duty of presiding over the Senate would have fallen to Grassley in Pence’s absence.

Chesebro argued that Pence should recuse because of a conflict of interest — he was involved in the election."

I truly believe that this option was what they were counting on on Jan 6. Remember how Pence refused to get in the car that would take him to a safe place? He knew what they were planning-- or at the very least, he suspected they would attempt to put Grassley in his place. And Grassley knew as much, as evidenced by his remarks the day before (at least, I think it was the day before, it could have been earlier in the week), that he didn't expect that Pence would be there and that he would be president pro tempore on the 6th.

[GreyhoundFan]

Good news!

 

[CTRLZero]

Here’s a CNN article about a pro-Trump attorney who released Dominion Voting Systems emails related to a court case.  She may have been jailed. 

CNN - Dominion email leak

Excerpt:

A pro-Trump lawyer who tried to overturn the 2020 election was arrested Monday after a court hearing about her recent leak of internal emails belonging to Dominion Voting Systems.

There was an existing arrest warrant for the attorney, Stefanie Lambert, stemming from her failure to appear at recent court hearings in her separate criminal case in Michigan, where she was charged with conspiring to seize voting machines after the 2020 election. 

Lambert and a cadre of election deniers have disrupted one of Dominion’s many ongoing defamation lawsuits by publicly leaking thousands of the company’s internal emails in recent days, using the disclosures to resurrect false claims about voter fraud.

The controversy erupted when Lambert provided the confidential Dominion documents to Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who has embraced conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and has used his office to hunt for supposed voter fraud against Donald Trump. In the last 24 hours, Leaf has posted more than 2,000 internal Dominion documents on his social media account.

Lambert had access to the Dominion files because she represents former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who is being sued for defamation by the voting company over his 2020 election lies. As part of the case, they have access to “discovery” from Dominion, whose lawyers said they have already turned over more than a million documents.

Lambert attended a hearing Monday in Byrne’s defamation case in Washington, DC, but was never seen leaving the courtroom, and questions swirled among the other attorneys about whether she had been taken into custody.

The judge told Lambert to stay behind as the hearing wrapped up. The other attorneys left the courtroom, and two federal marshals then went inside and locked the doors. Lambert was never seen exiting the courtroom. The marshals declined to say whether they arrested.  …

Edited March 19 by CTRLZero
More text.

[GreyhoundFan]

More election fraud. Is anyone surprised that she’s a GQPer?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More voter fraud from the GQP:

 

[Ozlsn]

7 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

More voter fraud from the GQP:

 

Lucky she's not in Texas or Florida or she'd be in for life... or does that not apply when actual fraud is committed by Republican leaning people rather than mistakes made by Democrat voters?

[fraurosena]

On 4/2/2024 at 12:00 PM, Ozlsn said:

Lucky she's not in Texas or Florida or she'd be in for life... or does that not apply when actual fraud is committed by Republican leaning people rather than mistakes made by Democrat voters?

Of course rules don't really apply when it's a Republican doing the fraud. But beware when you're a POC, who erroneously believes you are allowed to vote when you're on probation-- then you get 5 whole years. Even if you can show you acted in good faith. Better to be a Republican and commit fraud, that's only a four-month stint.

[GreyhoundFan]

Another disgusting GQPer.  A dear friend of mine is in a nursing home because she has a terrible progressive illness that has robbed her body of much of its function. Her mind, however, is still razor sharp and she has a right to vote.

 

[CTRLZero]

It looks like OAN settled with Smartmatic in a confidential agreement.  I’d love to know the terms.

CNN: settlement between OAN and Smartmatic

[CTRLZero]

Kari Lake’s appeal to the Supreme Court has been “brushed aside.”  My bolding - I snarkily wonder if they cited My Pillow Guy, Esq.  Of course, the lawyers backtracked on actual versus potential future harm.  🙄

———-

CNN:

The Supreme Court brushed aside a lawsuit Monday from Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake challenging the use of electronic voting machines in Arizona.

Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured “a fair and accurate vote.” Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue.

Calling the precise nature of Lake’s claim “not clear,” the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the lawsuit was based on speculative concerns that the machines could be hacked.

Although Lake and Finchem cited “opinions by purported experts on manipulation risk” in the lawsuit, they did “not contend that any electronic tabulation machine in Arizona has ever been hacked,” the appeals court said. On appeal, the court continued, lawyers for Lake “conceded that their arguments were limited to potential future hacking, and not based on any past harm.”

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal Monday without comment, which is common.

Lake had sued the Arizona Secretary of State and the boards of supervisors of Maricopa and Pima Counties. All three waived their right to respond to the Supreme Court appeal, a signal that they believed the litigation was frivolous.

Lake accused the Supreme Court of “institutional inertia” on election issues after intervening in the 2000 election in the Bush v. Gore case, even though the court this term is heavily involved in several appeals involving former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.