{"id":3823,"date":"2023-06-27T05:04:16","date_gmt":"2023-06-27T05:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=3823"},"modified":"2023-06-27T05:04:21","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T05:04:21","slug":"former-assembly-elections-committee-chair-urges-no-vote-on-controversial-wisconsin-elections-commission-administrator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=3823","title":{"rendered":"Former Assembly Elections Committee Chair Urges \u2018No\u2019 Vote on Controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/former-assembly-elections-committee-chair-urges-no-vote-on-controversial-wisconsin-elections-commission-administrator\/mkittle\/2023\/06\/27\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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State Representative Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) is urging the Wisconsin Elections Commission to fire Meagan Wolfe, WEC\u2019s controversial administrator.<\/p>\n

The commission meets at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday<\/a> to take up Wolfe\u2019s re-appointment to a four-year term. Her current term ends Friday.<\/p>\n

Brandtjen, the former chairwoman of the Assembly Campaign and Elections Committee, in a statement issued Monday said Wolfe is \u201ceager to reclaim her job,\u201d and so \u201cdesperate to own the narrative, she released notices and the agenda over the weekend, hoping the meeting would go unnoticed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWolfe knew there had been massive criticism over the 2020 elections, so she put out a 6-page document defending her decisions. It might be the most laughable document from the Wisconsin Elections Administrator to date,\u201d the lawmaker said.<\/p>\n

Brandtjen has been a leading critic of Wolfe. The Assembly committee investigated election integrity allegations and irregularities surrounding the 2020 presidential election in which Democrat Joe Biden narrowly defeated then-President Donald Trump in battleground Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) removed her <\/a>from the committee and the leadership post late last year, punishment for Brandtjen\u2019s countenancing allegations of so-called 2020 \u201celection deniers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfe\u2019s \u201cSetting the Record Straight: Fact Checks About Wisconsin Election Administration\u201d <\/a>document sent to lawmakers, for instance, asserts widespread and legally suspect use of drop boxes to collect absentee ballots in the 2020 election and those of a more recent vintage was justified because drop boxes had been used for years. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling<\/a> last year found that drop boxes are a new creation of executive branch officials and were never authorized by the Legislature, Brandtjen said. There is no mention of drop boxes in state law, \u201conly in memos prepared by WEC staff who did not cite any statutes to support their use.\u201d <<\/p>\n

A Legislative Audit Bureau report<\/a> on the 2020 elections found myriad examples of the Elections Commission and Wolfe issuing guidance, advice and rules contrary to state law. In some more glaring instances, Wolfe issued broad guidance on \u2018curing\u201d or correcting ballot information and on ballot drop boxes that violated election law.<\/p>\n

Twice, Wolfe created guidance documents disregarding the Legislature\u2019s Rules Committee and her own commissioners, Brandtjen said<\/p>\n

\u201cEvidently, this was not an oversight but a deliberate plan to deceive clerks about the law and present herself as being on par with the Legislature. She did not adhere to the legal procedures that were established,\u201d the lawmaker stated.<\/p>\n

Wolfe did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

In her \u201cfact check\u201d document,<\/a> however, she insists the agency and the administration of elections are \u201cnot above fair and honest criticism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are always glad to answer questions about our processes, whether the questions are from Commissioners, legislators, or members of the public. In return, we ask that those who have questions about elections will engage with those facts before perpetuating unsubstantiated rumors,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

But Brandtjen claims Wolfe is playing fast and loose with the historical record.<\/p>\n

Wolfe repeatedly lays the responsibility for WEC actions at the feet of the six-member partisan commissioners, evenly appointed by Republicans and Democrats. She\u2019s correct the commissioners have ultimate authority, but the \u201cexperts\u201d in the administrative state often lead those decisions with their election law recommendations.<\/p>\n

In the case of guidance on local election clerks curing or correcting absentee ballot envelopes, Wolfe asserts that guidance was established by commissioners in the 2016 election \u2014 three years before Wolfe took the administrative post. But Wolfe was WEC\u2019s deputy administrator at the time and is a long-time staff member at the controversial agency. A Waukesha County court in 2022 ruled WEC had to stop its guidance on corrections to absentee ballot envelopes with missing witness addresses. As an experienced election law attorney, it could be argued that Wolfe should have seen the legal problems with the long-standing guidance.<\/p>\n

Wolfe\u2019s assertion that she had nothing to do with municipalities applying for so-called \u201csafe election grants\u201d from the left-leaning Center for Tech and Civic Life before the 2020 election doesn\u2019t withstand scrutiny of the records. CTCL received hundreds of millions of dollars in election grant funds from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and, as has been widely reported,<\/a> the lion\u2019s share of the funding to presidential battleground states such as Wisconsin went to the largest, Democrat-heavy cities. Emails and other communications<\/a> also show liberal activists and a long-time Democratic Party operative extensively involved in election offices in Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison, Racine and Kenosha.<\/p>\n

An email from Wolfe to local election officials in the so-called \u201cWisconsin- 5\u201d cities shows the election administrator passing along a \u201crecommendation and resource.\u201d The recommendation was for the elections officials to work with Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, a New York Democratic Party activist who, according to several emails,<\/a> was embedded in Green Bay\u2019s Democrat-controlled election office and with Milwaukee\u2019s election office.<\/p>\n

Wolfe will need four of the six commissioners to keep her job in Tuesday\u2019s vote. She would seem to have the Democrat-appointed commissioners in her column; the question is will the Republican appointees back Wolfe?<\/p>\n

Sources say Wolfe does not have enough support in the Republican-controlled Senate to survive a confirmation vote, which will ultimately decide whether the administrator stays or goes.<\/p>\n

Brandtjen is urging the Wisconsin Elections Commission to end Wolfe\u2019s tenure in state election administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWolfe has abused her powers, misleading clerks and the WEC into her fantasy that she can create election law,\u201d the lawmaker said. \u201cPlease vote \u2018no\u2019 on her reappointment and instead seek an administrator willing to uphold election laws as established by the Legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.<\/strong>
\nPhoto \u201cJanel Brandtjen\u201d by Representative Janel Brandtjen<\/a>. Photo \u201cMeagan Wolfe\u201d by Wisconsin Elections Commission<\/a>. Background Photo \u201cWisconsin State Capitol\u201d by 12019<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Former Assembly Elections Committee Chair Urges \u2018No\u2019 Vote on Controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/former-assembly-elections-committee-chair-urges-no-vote-on-controversial-wisconsin-elections-commission-administrator\/mkittle\/2023\/06\/27\/ State Representative Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) is urging the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3824,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3823\/revisions\/3824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}