Wisconsin Republicans admit vote to fire elections chief had no legal effect
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republican Wisconsin lawmakers working to oust the state’s nonpartisan top elections official have admitted that a Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe, leaders of the GOP-controlled Legislature said in court documents filed Friday that the vote on Sept. 14 to fire her “was symbolic and meant to signal disapproval of Administrator Wolfe’s performance.”
Wolfe has been lawfully holding over in office since her term expired on July 1, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, Senate President Chris Kapenga and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos admitted.
Wolfe declined to comment on Monday.
“I’m glad they have finally acknowledged these realities, though it’s a shame it took the filing of litigation to get to this point,” Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who brought the lawsuit challenging the Senate’s vote, said in a statement Monday.
But Republicans aren’t done with trying to force a vote on firing Wolfe.
LeMahieu, Kapenga and Vos shifted their legal arguments to the three Democratic commissioners who abstained in June from voting on Wolfe’s reappointment in order to for one of the Democratic elections commissioners who abstained from voting on Wolfe’s reappointment. A confirmation vote on Commissioner Joseph Czarnezki was set for Tuesday.
The fight over who will oversee elections in the presidential battleground state has caused instability ahead of the 2024 presidential race for Wisconsin’s more than 1,800 local clerks who actually run elections. The issues Republicans have taken with Wolfe are centered around how she administered the 2020 presidential election, and many are based in lies spread by former President Donald Trump and his supporters.
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Harm Venhuizen is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.