Green Bay Reporter

Wisconsin Assembly special counsel Michael Gableman has released a report on the conduct of state and local elections officials in the November 2020 presidential elections, and asked state lawmakers to “take a long hard look at decertifying” the 2020 results where President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by less than 1% (20,000 votes) of the vote.

In 2016, Trump also carried Wisconsin by less than 1% of the vote. Gableman said that decertifying the results would not change Biden's election, WISN reports.

Appearing before the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, the former state Supreme Court justice also told committee members that the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), should be “eliminated and dismantled” for violating state election laws and practices.

He called out five of six commission members for “intentionally and knowingly” committing election fraud in the state’s nursing homes. He specifically cited WEC administrator Meagan Wolfe for her involvement with an effort to direct private funds provided by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to help election officials in a get out the vote campaign in the five Democratically run cites of Madison, Green Bay, Racine, Milwaukee, and Kenosha. Gableman referred to them as the "Zuckerberg Five." 

Trump carried the counties surrounding Green Bay, Racine and Kenosha.

Republican Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke tweeted March 1 that decertifying the election would be a "fools errand."

"Still not legal under Wisconsin law," he said. "Beyond that, it would have no practical impact b/c there is no Constitutional way to remove a sitting president other than through impeachment or incapacity. Fools errand. Focus on the future."

The report comes six months after the committee appointed Gableman as special counsel. The results of the report are supported by a separate investigation by the public interest law firm, the Thomas More Society, on behalf of the Wisconsin Voters Alliance (WVA).

In addition to the nursing home voter violations, Gableman and the Thomas More Society cite the illegal use of drop boxes, voting by people ineligible to vote, including noncitizens, and violation of the law covering election bribery.

Gableman showed video-taped presentations of interviews of sons and daughters of nursing home residents who were shocked that their parents, some with severe dementia, cast ballots in the 2020 general election and February 2021 primary elections.

Gableman said that nursing home residents in the five Zuckerberg cites had an unheard of 95% to 100% voting turnout.

He blamed WEC for not enforcing a law that requires the presence of special voting deputies, from both parties, in the homes to ensure that those who vote are capable of voting, and not having their ballots filled out by third parties.

“Everyone would be upset if they knew their loved ones were taken advantage of like this,” Gableman said.

The Facebook money ($8.6 million in grants to the Zuckerberg Five) was funneled through the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), which partnered with the progressive National Vote at Home Institute run Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein, a former Democratic operative. 

Spitzer-Rubenstein made initial contact with the five cities. In Green Bay, he effectively took over control of election management after City Clerk Kris Teske resigned to protest the outside influence over election management.

In March 2021, Wolfe told committee members that she was unaware of the involvement of private money in election management, but Gableman showed a slide of an August 2020 email from Wolfe to elections officials introducing them to Spitzer-Rubenstein.

Counsel for Thomas More, Erick Kaardal, said in a statement that “the serial nature of the election violations brought out in the special counsel’s report contradict election officials’ claims of a perfect Wisconsin election. Investigations into election integrity and litigation will be necessary until progressive organizations and election officials stop intentionally violating Wisconsin law."

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul was critical of the report in a statement.

"This report is a full-throated attack on our democracy and a truly shocking example of the authoritarian mindset at work," he said, as reported by WISN. "The report provides a roadmap for attempting to overturn the will of the voters based on a fringe legal theory. It includes recommendations that would restrict access to voting and make it harder to detect fraud. And it disparages due process and public records requests because they are inconvenient to certain individuals with power."