Democrats and the legacy media call it the “Big Lie.”
Former President Donald Trump, “America First” advocates, and select conservative media columnists call it the “Steal.”
Opinions on the subject vary, but one point is certain—the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and the topic of election integrity are widely discussed issues as the midterm election races reach their final stretch.
That’s especially true in Wisconsin.
A Sept. 22 poll from Marquette University Law School in Wisconsin illustrates the division over the topic of election integrity between the two parties.
Among likely voters surveyed, 86 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans are “very confident” that votes in Wisconsin were accurately cast and counted in the 2020 presidential election.
Those figures include independent voters who lean Democratic or Republican.
The poll also revealed that 62 percent of Republicans weren’t too confident or weren’t confident at all in the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state while 6 percent of Democrats feel that way.
Republican Robin Vos, the state’s General Assembly speaker, has raised questions about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, but has refused to decertify the results. Vos won a closely contested Republican primary on Aug. 9 over Trump-endorsed Adam Steen.
In July, the Wisconsin Supreme Court banned the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the state. Only the voter can return a ballot in person, the conservative-led body determined.
A federal judge later ruled that voters with disabilities are allowed to obtain third-party assistance for mailing ballots or delivering them to a clerk.
Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels and incumbent U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) believe in election reform.
Neither candidate will commit to accepting the outcome of their elections when the results are certified. Their opponents, incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, have said that they'll accept the Nov. 8 results, win or lose.
Michels would accept the election results “provided the election is conducted fairly and securely,” a spokesperson recently said.
When asked if Johnson would concede if he loses on Nov. 8, Johnson campaign spokesperson Alec Zimmerman said that “it is certainly his hope that he can.”
“He would feel much better about the 2022 election had Governor Evers signed bills the legislature passed to restore confidence in our election system,” Zimmerman said. “That said, we are doing everything we can to ensure guidances and election procedures comply with state law. We will be monitoring everything closely.”
Wisconsin’s Republican-led state legislature said it wanted to restore confidence in the state’s elections, which is why it has passed several voting measures in 2022.
In 2021, the state’s Legislative Audit Bureau announced that it didn’t uncover evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, but it did issue multiple recommendations for improvements.
Evers vetoed all of them and noted that he wouldn’t sign any measure that he believes would make voting more difficult.
One vetoed piece of legislation would have authorized the Republican-controlled budget committee to enforce staffing cuts or decrease funding at state agencies if the committee determined that the departments didn’t follow election laws.
He also refused to sign a measure that would have required the Elections Commission to first provide any guidance sent to elections officials to the legislature’s rules committee.
In most cases, citizens who can’t visit the polls and request absentee ballots can do that without submitting a photo ID. The legislature passed legislation that would have limited who could claim “indefinitely confined” status. Evers rejected the measure.
The legislature passed legislation that would have prevented election clerks from filling in missing details on absentee ballot envelopes and banned any person other than a voter, designated individual, guardian, or immediate family member from returning an absentee ballot. Evers vetoed that measure, too.
In early October, a Waukesha County judge ruled that the elections commission wasn’t permitted to allow clerks to fill in missing information on the envelopes. The agency has instructed clerks that they can’t correct mistakes on absentee ballot witness certificates.
“All Wisconsinites would feel more confident in the process had Tony Evers signed the numerous election integrity bills sent to his desk, but provided the election is conducted fairly and securely thanks to the historic efforts to ensure election integrity this cycle, we’ll accept the outcome,” Michels spokesperson Anna Kelly told Madison.com.
The 60-year-old Michels is co-owner of Michels Corp., an energy and infrastructure contracting business that’s regarded as one of the world’s top petroleum contractors.
He entered the Republican primary in the later stages and defeated his main challenger, Rebecca Kleefisch, with a boost from Trump’s endorsement.
Michels said he would consider decertifying the 2020 presidential elections results if he’s elected. He also believes that the Wisconsin Elections Commission should be banned and that all rules the commission establishes for local commissions to administer elections should be eliminated.
If he defeats Evers on Nov. 8, Michels said he'll work with the state legislature to repair the “big problems” from 2020, referencing the use of ballot drop boxes and private grant funding to spearhead elections.
“No one knows what the extent of the election fraud was, and that’s the problem,” Michels told the Wisconsin State Journal. “A lot of people have questions about the 2020 election, as do I. Here’s what is very concerning to me; we are 18 months now from the 2020 election. And we’re still having a conversation here in Wisconsin, here in America, about the election in 2020. That is absolutely insane.
“We are not a Third World country. We are not a banana republic. This is the United States of America. People should not have questions about the integrity, the transparency, and the honesty of an election.”
Earlier this year, Johnson trailed in the polls, but has surged in recent months.
While Johnson trailed Barnes by 7 points in a Marquette University Law School poll in August, by Sept. 14, Marquette polling showed that Johnson had taken a 49 percent to 48 percent lead over Barnes. A new survey conducted by Marquette among likely voters between Oct. 3 and 9 shows Johnson polling at 52 percent, six points ahead of Barnes.
An AARP survey showed that Johnson leads Barnes 51 percent to 46 percent. The survey of likely voters, which was conducted from Sept. 18 to Sept. 25 and has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points, also discovered that Johnson has a 10-point advantage over Barnes among likely independent voters.
Meanwhile, the governor’s race has tightened, according to the Marquette survey, with Evers leading Michels 47 percent to 46 percent, within the margin of error. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the contest as a toss-up, while the RealClearPolitics polling average shows the support for each candidate tied at about 48 percent.
Crime and abortion are hot-button topics in both races, but election reform remains a prominent subject in the state.
On Oct. 5, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel ruled that Wisconsin voters can’t cancel their ballot and cast a new one once a vote has been cast.
Schimel granted a request for a temporary injunction against the practice, which is known as ballot spoiling and was encouraged by the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) at offices throughout the state.
Wisconsin voter Nancy Kormanik sued the WEC over its guidance that states that clerks can give completed and submitted absentee ballots to voters. Doing so violates a Wisconsin law that states that the clerk “shall not return the ballot to the elector” once submitted, according to the lawsuit.
The guidance was issued after multiple candidates dropped out of high-profile races, including Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate.
A Republican and former Wisconsin attorney general, Schimel sided with Kormanik and ordered an injunction effective Oct. 7.
Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections is representing Kormanik.
“Today’s ruling is another major victory for Wisconsin voters. WEC’s unlawful guidance destroys voter confidence and taints the integrity of Wisconsin’s elections. Once a vote is cast, it is cast. Period,” Derek Lyons, president and CEO of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, said in a statement.
The Democratic National Committee is siding with the WEC.
“We disagree with this decision to restrict voting access in Wisconsin,“ a committee spokeswoman told media outlets in a statement. ”Particularly as voters in the state have already begun to cast their ballots.”
