Nine of 10 bills filed in six states seeking to audit 2020 election results—including three that would have nullified Joe Biden’s victory—have fallen by the wayside as legislative sessions wind down.
Seven bills seeking 2020 general election audits were filed in four states, Florida, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Only a New Hampshire measure proposing a review of one county’s 2020 results remains on the docket.
Lawmakers in New Hampshire, Arizona, and Wisconsin filed 2022 legislation demanding the nullification of 2020’s election results with an audit to determine the winner. Only the embattled Wisconsin effort has a heartbeat.
Failed Resolution
While HB 1484 is dead, another bill seeking only to audit election results in Merrimack County has secured one committee approval and remains viable.The resolution calls on Congress to “set aside the results of the Maricopa, Pima, and Yuma County elections as irredeemably compromised and reclaim the 2020 Presidential Electors due to the irredeemably flawed nature of these elections that prevent the declaration of a clear winner of said presidential electors.”
He said, “They can’t see to bring themselves to consider the evidence that has been laid before them.”
Finchem said Bowers told him he was essentially killing the resolution because “he hadn’t seen the evidence and hadn’t seen the supporting jurisprudence. Well, I found the evidence and now that’s not good enough.”
Last year, Finchem survived two election recalls in part for his outspoken support for a failed resolution seeking to block the state’s 11 electoral college votes for Biden and instead accept “the alternate 11 electoral votes” for Trump.
“It is a case where if you don’t like the message, even if the message is right, you kill the messenger,” he said, calling for a ”show up or shut up public debate” with those who oppose a 2020 election audit.
“We have a great place, the Hyatt Regency downtown [Phoenix]. They have a ballroom that will accommodate 800 people,” Finchem said. “On the stage, pros and cons making their case. The problem is there are no cons who want to come, none have the spinal fortitude to show up, The pros will show. All I have to do is pick up the phone and tell them when to be there. This is who the cons are—they’re afraid they will be found out.”
No Basis in Law
“The people who fill the institutions, they love the status quo because this protects their power,” Finchem said, adding as far as he knows, Arizona is one of only “two states that recognize the Constitution and the pertinent judicial prudence and have received evidence—formally received evidence,” that the 2020 election should be nullified.That other state would be Wisconsin where, on March 1, the Legislature’s Office of the Special Counsel published a 136-page report that lays out a legal argument that the “the Wisconsin Legislature could lawfully take steps to decertify electors in any Presidential election”; provides a method for private citizens to challenge the state’s voter rolls; gives power to certify elections to a “politically accountable body” rather than the governor and the elections commission; creates a way for presidential candidates to “assemble alternative slates of electors”; and allows post-certification challenges to election results.
Stand Earns Punishment
Inaction on last year’s Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) election analysis and demands for decertification have fostered division among Wisconsin Republicans with every member of Assembly GOP leadership issuing a joint statement accusing Ramthun and a staffer of spreading misinformation among lawmakers while continuing to demand House Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) do more to overturn the 2020 election result.As punishment, Ramthun was denied legislative aides until Feb. 20 when legislative aide Erin Yeager was assigned to his office “20 hours a week to take care of 66,000 constituents.”
Ramthun in February announced he would challenge “establishment” Republicans Kevin Nicholson and Rebecca Kleefisch for the party’s nod in the GOP August primary to take on incumbent Democrat Tony Evers in November’s gubernatorial race.
There is “unfinished business” in examining issues related to the 2020 presidential election and not investigating it further is “an assault on our Constitution and it’s a national security issue,” he said in announcing his candidacy.
Decertifying the 2020 election will be a key component of his campaign, Ramthun promised.
“I want everything to be revisited and reviewed fully and forensic because if we’re not going to get closure in 2020 and justice, we’re going to need to continue to pursue that in every election until we get it right,” he said. ”I won’t stop until we have justice so I'll keep poking. I’m all in.”
