Here & Now

A 2020 Election Review by the State Senate

Frederica Freyberg:

Partisan roiling around the 2020 election hit a fever pitch late this week. The Racine County sheriff accused the Wisconsin Elections Commission of breaking the law in the midst of the pandemic for allowing nursing home staff to help residents vote in 2020 in place of special voting deputies. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos quickly piled on, calling for the WEC administrator to resign and other Republicans called for all state election commissioners to immediately step down and face possible prosecution. In response, Meagan Wolfe said, “Despite the current political firestorm, I will continue to apply my full focus on the important work of serving all Wisconsin’s voters and local election officials. It would be irresponsible to spend any energy engaging a blatantly partisan and coordinated attempt to baselessly challenge the integrity of democracy in our great state.” Governor Tony Evers called Vos’s reaction “unbecoming of his position” and, importantly, the Racine County district attorney has not filed charges. In the midst of all of this, there is yet another Wisconsin election investigation in the works. State Senate leaders this week announced they too would launch a probe into the 2020 election following results of the Legislative Audit Bureau review. The audit did not find anything that would change the results of the election or any widespread fraud but made 30 recommendations for the Wisconsin Elections Commission and 18 for the Legislature to consider around election procedures. Now the Senate Elections Committee will conduct the latest investigation. Its chair is Republican Senator Kathleen Bernier of Chippewa Falls who joins us now and thanks very much for doing so.

Kathleen Bernier:

It is my pleasure. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So was this a coordinated partisan attack attempting to undermine our elections? What the Racine County sheriff announced?

Kathleen Bernier:

No. This is not a new phenomenon. That is with nursing home staff who manipulate and take advantage of the elderly and the disabled. I spent months working on special voting deputy legislation for that purpose, because it is something we knew that was occurring. And so because of the pandemic, a decision had to be made, and I don’t know what other decision they could have made, but I believe that the enforcement of the law against these individuals that took advantage of our elderly and disabled should be pursued.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you also think that the WEC commissioners and its administrators should resign?

Kathleen Bernier:

I believe the commission is set up for failure at this point with the personalities that are involved, with three Democrats and three Republicans each voting their separate partisan wishes. So a 3-3 vote means that the staff do not get any direction. When they go to the board and ask for direction, it ends up in a tie and then a tie means nothing will happen.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about Meagan Wolfe? Do you think she should step down?

Kathleen Bernier:

No. No. She is doing what the election commission tells her to do or tells her not to do. I don’t believe it is fair to a staff person to hold her 100% accountable for what the election commission has decided. And I believe the audit points to that direction. Very few things — there’s one thing I’ve read thus far that the staff did not do correctly and that’s inform governing bodies that the clerk didn’t do their training. But aside from that, most all of it refers to the Wisconsin Election Commission itself.

Frederica Freyberg:

Turning to your investigation specifically, why are you deciding to move forward with yet another investigation?

Kathleen Bernier:

Well, I don’t know about yet another investigation. We haven’t really had this before, so this is — the investigation has to do with election officials who may not be accommodating the Legislative Audit Bureau. I don’t believe that can stand, because our state law directs counties, municipalities to accommodate the audit bureau’s requests. So that is the focus of this investigation is to why they would not accommodate the audit bureau. Because in the future, whether it has to do with elections or anything else, the municipalities and the counties and the school districts are required by law, 13.94, to accommodate the requests of the Legislative Audit Bureau. And that is strictly the focus of this investigation.

Frederica Freyberg:

So this has to do with clerks who decline to allow audit bureau staff to physically handle election records. But I understand that it’s also been decided by the legislative counsel that it was “arguably reasonable to permit only clerks’ staff to physically handle these documents.”

Kathleen Bernier:

So there’s more to that story. When a legislative counsel opinion is given, it usually is worded and pursued by a specific legislator. And that was Senator Janet Bewley requested that. The director of the leg counsel reached out to me for more to the story and additional information. I haven’t spoken with her yet. But there is more to the story. Such as the presidential race is not the only race on that ballot. There are many other races, state races and county races on those ballots. And so there’s a lot more to be investigated, which why I’m having an investigation.

Frederica Freyberg:

Very quickly, I just want to say that Minority Leader Janet Bewley also stated that instead of launching an investigation into the audit bureau’s findings, the legislature should be focusing on its election-related recommendations. What about that idea? We have only about a half a minute left.

Kathleen Bernier:

Okay. I’ve already — we’re already working on that, drafting instructions for the recommendations. The audit committee already is holding a hearing on the results of the audit. And then my investigation has to do with the cooperation or the lack of cooperation by election officials.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Great. Thank you very much. And thanks for joining us today on this very controversial election stuff that’s going on in the state of Wisconsin. Senator Kathleen Bernier, thank you.

Kathleen Bernier:

Okay. You’re welcome.