Following the completion of a partial recount, the Chairwoman of the Wisconsin Elections Commission approved the state’s vote tally from the November election Monday, confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and paving the way for lawsuits challenging the results to proceed.
Elections Commission Chairwoman Ann Jacobs signed a statement of canvass, which affirms Wisconsin’s voting results from its 72 counties and serves as one of the last steps in certifying the results of the Nov. 3 general election.
Later on Monday, Gov. Tony Evers signed a certificate of election, sent from the WEC, which officially granted Biden the winner of the state’s 10 electoral votes.
“Today I carried out my duty to certify the November 3rd election, and as required by state and federal law, I've signed the Certificate of Ascertainment for the slate of electors for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris,” Evers said in a press release. “I want to thank our clerks, election administrators and poll workers across our state for working tirelessly to ensure we had a safe, fair and efficient election. Thank you for all your good work.”
Jacobs signed the statement of canvass despite dissent from Republican elections commissioners Dean Knudson and Robert Spindell who advocated that the chairwoman wait until Tuesday, the state deadline for determining election results, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“I think we shouldn’t be certifying until the appeals are all over,” Knudson said. “It seems crazy to me if it would be certified and over if there are still appeals pending.”
However, the election commission’s 3-3 partisan split prevented a potential fourth vote to delay finalizing the results from occurring, allowing Jacobs to affirm the vote tally and pass the paperwork on to Evers.
Monday’s certification started a five-day countdown for incumbent President Donald Trump to appeal Wisconsin’s election results in state court, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
Biden initially carried Wisconsin by 20,600 votes, or 0.6 percent. The Trump campaign paid $3 million to recount votes in Dane and Milwaukee counties — two of the state’s most prominent Democratic strongholds. While Trump gained 58 votes in Dane County due to an error in uploading data, Biden gained 132 additional votes from Milwaukee County on Friday, netting Biden 74 more votes.
Trump said he would file a lawsuit in Wisconsin by Tuesday and tweeted Saturday about potential illegal votes casted during the election. Trump did not say where the alleged votes came from, and state officials reported no instances of voter fraud on Election Day. During the recount,400 unopened absentee ballots were found in Milwaukee County and included in the final vote count.
“The Wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, it is about finding people who have voted illegally, and that case will be brought after the recount is over,” Trump tweeted. “We have found many illegal votes. Stay tuned!”
During the recount, the Trump campaign unsuccessfully attempted to remove over 238,000 votes between the two counties, targeting absentee voters and those who qualified as “indefinitely confined,” who are residents who received ballots but did not adhere to Wisconsin’s photo ID requirements because they could not vote in-person due to age or disability, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, backed the state’s voting results and downplayed any reason that fraud played a part in the 2020 election.
“With the partial recount of the presidential election complete, there remains no question that, as usual, this year’s general election in Wisconsin was conducted professionally and securely,” Kaul said in a release. “There’s no basis at all for any assertion that there was widespread fraud that would have affected the results.”
With conservative commentators and Republican operatives stirring conspiracy theories on the recount and even reportedly encouraging voter fraud during the general election; some GOP members within Wisconsin have rebuked these claims and called for their fellow pundits to acknowledge the election results.
John Franke, a former Republican elections commissioner, wrote to all six current commissioners that the state “counted votes in a responsible and reasonable manner,” and they should not delay the certification.
“You supervised this election. You are responsible for finalizing the results,” Franke said.
Fond du Lac County Republican Party Chairman Rohn Bishop also pushed back against Republican accusations of voter fraud and said Republicans had gone too far with legal challenges seeking to invalidate votes, according to Wisconsin Watch.
“Now here we are, trying to disenfranchise people,” Bishop tweeted. “These voters did nothing wrong. There’s no fraud. We’re pushing for a drawdown (in votes counted) based on a technicality!”
Still, conservative groups within the state have filed lawsuits in an attempt to throw out the current elections results. The Wisconsin Voters Alliance asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court last week to replace the vote tally with electors appointed by the Republican-controlled state Legislature while a Chippewa County resident submitted a lawsuit contending the ballot boxes that collected absentee ballots were illegal.
