Post by ck4829 on Feb 17, 2022 3:15:52 GMT -6
'This disconnect between the state Republican leadership and the elected Republican officials could not be greater.'
MADISON, Wisconsin—On Tuesday, Republicans marched on the Wisconsin State Capitol in an effort to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election. But this was not simply a group of disgruntled private citizens waving Trump flags, and the event shows that the last election will undoubtedly influence the upcoming midterms.
At a noon rally, gubernatorial candidate Tim Ramthun addressed supporters, demanding the state legislature do something it has no power to do: “rescind” the state’s 10 electoral votes cast for Joe Biden in 2020. Ramthun, a state representative from a rural area north of Milwaukee, has become the state’s primary supporter of the conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election—the same election in which Ramthun himself was elected—was stolen from Donald Trump.
“I’m not conspiracy,” Ramthun told the crowd of about 200 people gathered in the same rotunda pro-union activists occupied a decade ago to protest then-Gov. Scott Walker’s changes to organized labor bargaining rights. “I want justice and closure on the details of the mechanics of our process,” he said.
Prior to the event, Victoria and her friend, who identified herself only as LeeAnn, held hands and took part in a lengthy prayer asking God to help them overturn the election. “We need God to step in here,” she told me.
LeeAnn told me she hated Trump until the Lord told her to stop criticizing him. “Quit trying to make [Trump] into who you are,” she says she remembers God telling her.
Victoria then told me Madison is the home of an international child sex ring run by “Hillary Clinton and many people like her.” Such claims are the hallmark of the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents believe that the country is ruled by a cabal of Democratic pedophiles and that only Donald Trump could save the country.
Wisconsin, however, has already investigated the 2020 election, and found the result to be fair and accurate. In a report issued in October 2021, the Legislative Audit Bureau, which surveyed all 1,835 municipal clerks and 72 county clerks, found no irregularities, but made some recommendations of future clarifications and law changes the legislature could make to avoid confusion.
“Despite concerns with statewide elections procedures, this audit showed us that the election was largely safe and secure,” tweeted Republican state Sen. Robert Cowles after release of the report. “It’s my hope that we can now look at election law changes & agency accountability measures in a bipartisan manner based on these nonpartisan recommendations.”
After a 10-month review, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which has sued to discontinue the use of ballot drop boxes, arrived at a similar conclusion, claiming it had found no evidence of voter fraud.
“In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump,” the group said in a report summary.
Even some of the state’s most conspiratorially inclined elected Republicans acknowledge Biden won Wisconsin.
“If all the Republicans voted for Trump the way they voted for the Assembly candidates, he [Trump] would have won,” Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson told progressive journalist Lauren Windsor in a hidden camera comment. “He didn’t get 51,000 votes that other Republicans got, and that’s why he lost.”
Johnson later doubled down on his assertion that Biden won Wisconsin, but added he thought there were still “irregularities” that “have yet to be fully explained, fully investigated, and solutions passed to restore confidence in future elections.”
Nonetheless, Ramthun has forged ahead with his claim that the Republican-led legislature can revoke its 10 electoral votes for Biden.
On January 25, Ramthun tried to drag a resolution to the floor that “acknowledges that illegality took place in conducting the general election and reclaims Wisconsin's 10 fraudulent electoral ballots cast for Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris.”
Rather than debate the resolution on the floor, the Assembly instead took a voice vote (typically signaling near-unanimity) to send it to a committee chaired by a Republican member of leadership that vowed to never bring it up for a vote.
“Rep Ramthun just attempted to pass an Assembly resolution to recall WI’s presidential electors,” tweeted Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, who is retiring at the end of the session.
“Not only is it illegal, it’s just plain unconstitutional,” Steineke wrote. He noted that as chair of the committee where the resolution was sent, “there is ZERO chance I will advance this illegal resolution.”
But the vote to bury the bill in a committee was enough for conspiracy-minded websites like Gateway Pundit to declare victory.
thedispatch.com/p/in-wisconsin-stop-the-steal-still
MADISON, Wisconsin—On Tuesday, Republicans marched on the Wisconsin State Capitol in an effort to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election. But this was not simply a group of disgruntled private citizens waving Trump flags, and the event shows that the last election will undoubtedly influence the upcoming midterms.
At a noon rally, gubernatorial candidate Tim Ramthun addressed supporters, demanding the state legislature do something it has no power to do: “rescind” the state’s 10 electoral votes cast for Joe Biden in 2020. Ramthun, a state representative from a rural area north of Milwaukee, has become the state’s primary supporter of the conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election—the same election in which Ramthun himself was elected—was stolen from Donald Trump.
“I’m not conspiracy,” Ramthun told the crowd of about 200 people gathered in the same rotunda pro-union activists occupied a decade ago to protest then-Gov. Scott Walker’s changes to organized labor bargaining rights. “I want justice and closure on the details of the mechanics of our process,” he said.
Prior to the event, Victoria and her friend, who identified herself only as LeeAnn, held hands and took part in a lengthy prayer asking God to help them overturn the election. “We need God to step in here,” she told me.
LeeAnn told me she hated Trump until the Lord told her to stop criticizing him. “Quit trying to make [Trump] into who you are,” she says she remembers God telling her.
Victoria then told me Madison is the home of an international child sex ring run by “Hillary Clinton and many people like her.” Such claims are the hallmark of the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents believe that the country is ruled by a cabal of Democratic pedophiles and that only Donald Trump could save the country.
Wisconsin, however, has already investigated the 2020 election, and found the result to be fair and accurate. In a report issued in October 2021, the Legislative Audit Bureau, which surveyed all 1,835 municipal clerks and 72 county clerks, found no irregularities, but made some recommendations of future clarifications and law changes the legislature could make to avoid confusion.
“Despite concerns with statewide elections procedures, this audit showed us that the election was largely safe and secure,” tweeted Republican state Sen. Robert Cowles after release of the report. “It’s my hope that we can now look at election law changes & agency accountability measures in a bipartisan manner based on these nonpartisan recommendations.”
After a 10-month review, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which has sued to discontinue the use of ballot drop boxes, arrived at a similar conclusion, claiming it had found no evidence of voter fraud.
“In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump,” the group said in a report summary.
Even some of the state’s most conspiratorially inclined elected Republicans acknowledge Biden won Wisconsin.
“If all the Republicans voted for Trump the way they voted for the Assembly candidates, he [Trump] would have won,” Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson told progressive journalist Lauren Windsor in a hidden camera comment. “He didn’t get 51,000 votes that other Republicans got, and that’s why he lost.”
Johnson later doubled down on his assertion that Biden won Wisconsin, but added he thought there were still “irregularities” that “have yet to be fully explained, fully investigated, and solutions passed to restore confidence in future elections.”
Nonetheless, Ramthun has forged ahead with his claim that the Republican-led legislature can revoke its 10 electoral votes for Biden.
On January 25, Ramthun tried to drag a resolution to the floor that “acknowledges that illegality took place in conducting the general election and reclaims Wisconsin's 10 fraudulent electoral ballots cast for Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris.”
Rather than debate the resolution on the floor, the Assembly instead took a voice vote (typically signaling near-unanimity) to send it to a committee chaired by a Republican member of leadership that vowed to never bring it up for a vote.
“Rep Ramthun just attempted to pass an Assembly resolution to recall WI’s presidential electors,” tweeted Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, who is retiring at the end of the session.
“Not only is it illegal, it’s just plain unconstitutional,” Steineke wrote. He noted that as chair of the committee where the resolution was sent, “there is ZERO chance I will advance this illegal resolution.”
But the vote to bury the bill in a committee was enough for conspiracy-minded websites like Gateway Pundit to declare victory.
thedispatch.com/p/in-wisconsin-stop-the-steal-still