Wisconsin lawmakers, lawyer promise more investigations after election integrity report

The questions, and very likely the lawsuits, prompted by Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election are not over simply because the Gableman Report has been released.

Republican lawmakers and a lawyer for the Thomas More Society on Tuesday said they will continue to press for answers about what the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life, and election managers in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha did during the run-up to the last presidential vote.

“We are still waiting on open records requests from an election that happened in 2020,” Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, said Tuesday. “How are voters to have confidence when they still haven’t gotten the information?”

Brandtjen said the release of the Gableman Report is not the end of the investigation into the 2020 election.

Erick Kaardal, special counsel for the Thomas More Society, said the group intends to continue investigating claims of voter fraud at nursing homes in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine, and Kenosha.

“We’re going to the county clerks and requesting the absentee ballot envelopes. And we’re going to see if one person in the facility signed for every person that voted there,” Kaardal explained.

The Gableman report found suspiciously high voter turnout, at or near 100% in some nursing homes, during the 2020 election.

“When you see 100% register-resident-voting rates, is someone voting for them?” Kaardal asked.

The Thomas More Society challenged the use of the so-called Zuckerbucks last year. In December the Elections Commission dismissed their complaint, saying the nearly $9 million in grants were not technically illegal. Kaardal said at the time he was planning on appealing that ruling in court.

Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, said the legislature needs to continue its investigation as well.

“We’re getting a lot of good evidence,” Murphy said. “Maybe we’ll take it to the level of proof. But I would say we’re not there yet, but we’re getting much closer.”

Kaardal said the Gableman investigation also highlights just how hard it is to get answers from a recalcitrant government.

“If the government has difficulty investigating the government, then the people are going to have difficulty investigating the government,” Kaardal explained.