Frederica Freyberg:

Former conservative Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman took to YouTube this week releasing a six-minute-long video statement about his investigation into the 2020 Wisconsin election. It came following confusion on the part of election clerks over an email from his office that was flagged as a possible cybersecurity risk. The state Assembly last week approved at least $680,000 in taxpayer money for the Gableman probe. This, despite the fact that after recounts, court challenges and official results audits, no widespread fraud was found. As some measure of that, yesterday the fourth Wisconsin voter out of some 3 million voters in the 2020 presidential election was charged with election fraud. Here’s an excerpt of Gableman’s video statement.

Michael Gableman:

This is not an election contest. We are not challenging the results of the 2020 election. Rather, we are holding government officials accountable to the public for their actions surrounding the elections. As the officials directly responsible for administering elections, Wisconsin’s 1,922 county and municipal clerks have a duty to the people of our state to be forthcoming in this investigation. It is my sincere hope that Wisconsin election officials will live up to that duty. But if they do not, we will use the power afforded to the Office of Special Counsel to compel answers to these questions. This investigation will be guided by a search for the truth and not by political priorities or political time tables. Some evidence has been produced previously that shows some election officials acted unilaterally in deciding not to follow established state law. We will request from those officials and others with potential knowledge of unlawful actions and will compel them, if necessary, to produce documents and testimony that will allow the public to gain a comprehensive understanding of how their elections were managed.

Frederica Freyberg:

The top election official in Wisconsin, Meagan Wolfe, says she does not know what possible unlawful actions Gableman is talking about. Wolfe has repeatedly defended the integrity of Wisconsin’s 2020 elections. Marisa Wojcik sat down with UW-Madison election expert Barry Burden and asked him his reaction to the Gableman YouTube statement.

Marisa Wojcik:

What is your take on that? This is an investigation that seems to be different than looking for fraud. Is this just creating more confusion? Certainly we haven’t seen something like this before.

Barry Burden:

Well, I have a couple worries about this. One is that Gableman’s investigation seems to have a moving target in mind. The kinds of things that his team is interested in have shifted over time. He’s traveled to Arizona to see the recounts audit business that was happening there in Maricopa County. He’s traveled to a seminar that Mike Lindell, the My Pillow CEO, put on in South Dakota and consulted with other folks who are in that industry of raising questions about the election. His most recent video, as you mentioned, is now talking about clerks not following the law. To me that seems like a very different set of concerns. If that were happening, I think the Legislature would have the right to hold hearings to look into that and they’ve already done some of that. There could be court cases filed. Someone could file suit claiming that clerks or election officials were not following the law. Viewers will remember that there were seven or eight of those suits filed right after the presidential election in Wisconsin, both in state court and federal court claiming that laws were not being followed, that the collection of ballots in city parks was not allowed under the law. Maybe drop boxes should not have been permitted. Maybe clerks were assisting voters with completing absentee ballot information that they shouldn’t have. All of those suits essentially were tossed out. They were not seen as having any merit and they didn’t make any changes to the election as a result. Now, that’s not to say we shouldn’t do some improvements after each election. It is an imperfect process. It’s a very human process. We went through a really different kind of election than ever before and I think the system adapted, but it wasn’t designed to deal with the kinds of challenges we faced in 2020. So some changes to the election law are probably right. But I don’t think doing it through a somewhat secretive investigation that’s not done in full public view and with moving targets is really problematic.