Frederica Freyberg:

Presidential election recounts are now underway in Dane and Milwaukee Counties. The Trump campaign requested the partial recount this week in counties that vote overwhelmingly democratic. The 2016 presidential election recount changed results by fewer than 150 votes but this time the Trump campaign is alleging mistakes and fraud in counting and return of votes cast in the state’s two most populous counties. We check in now with Wisconsin Public Radio Capitol Bureau Chief Shawn Johnson. Nice to see you Shawn.

Shawn Johnson:

Good to see you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So as you know, all eyes on Wisconsin and here’s a rundown of Trump campaign allegations in its recount petition including that clerks “cured” ballots, that not requesting an absentee ballot in writing contravenes state law, that more than 200,000 people voted absentee as “indefinitely confined” without voter ID and observers in Milwaukee couldn’t get close enough. Seems like they’re kind of trying to run the table on allegations of fraud in our election process and made those challenges today at the Milwaukee and Madison recount sites seeking to throw out something on the order of like 200,000 plus ballots. How does this get resolved?

Shawn Johnson:

You could only imagine it probably gets resolved in a court somewhere, probably in a state court and in a state Supreme Court because what they are doing is not like a recount like you think of with, you know, 2,000 in Florida where they’re examining hanging chads or something. They’re challenging the system basically, the entire system of absentee balloting and the advice that clerks have followed from the state Elections Commission on how that system is run. Essentially they’re trying to upend the whole thing. So kind of necessarily, a court is probably have to get involved in that.

Frederica Freyberg:

I would say. Courts could rule, then, to throw out the votes and flip the results and change Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes to Trump. Are we getting ahead of ourselves by talking about that kind of thing?

Shawn Johnson:

On the one hand you hear what you just said and think maybe we shouldn’t go that far, right? That’s never happened before. And typically a recount is kind of unceremonious. We had one four years ago. Didn’t change much. Let’s just let the system play out. On the other hand what the Trump campaign is looking to do here is, as you mentioned, throw out just broad swaths of votes that were cast in two counties that really delivered Wisconsin to Joe Biden. And so if they are successful in court that would necessarily change the outcome of the race depending on how many votes they end up challenging.

Frederica Freyberg:

The nuts and bolts of the recount are that it is supposed to be finished by December 1st and certified by our Elections Commission. That could all go out the window, though, that kind of timeline. What then?

Shawn Johnson:

What then is probably anybody’s guess because that’s something we haven’t been through before. It is something that election experts were kind of warning about ahead of this election. This idea that what if the state can’t agree on what electors to send? And so that’s kind of a bridge that we have to cross when we get to it because we haven’t been down that road before where instead of state voters deciding who represents them in this process, it gets decided by Washington.

Frederica Freyberg:

Wow. Well, let’s switch back to Wisconsin because meanwhile in the state Legislature Republicans were planning to hold their own investigation into this election this week. Haven’t heard anything on that. What do you know?

Shawn Johnson:

So just got an email from Representative Ron Tusler who is leading the investigation in the Assembly. He said they are investigating as he put it. They haven’t met yet but they are investigating the election and that they were going to hold a meeting on the 24th of November but held off at the request of the Elections Commission until the recount is done. But that is definitely moving forward.

Frederica Freyberg:

Interesting. Thank you for that update. Also on COVID and COVID relief legislation, Governor Evers and Republican Speaker Robin Vos met today. What do we know about whether anything might be forthcoming from that?

Shawn Johnson:

What we know is that they both said nice things about the meeting and kind of said it’s a step in the right direction. Beyond that we don’t know much. I mean, if you look at what the governor has talked about, what he introduced this week. Some of the big pieces of his latest COVID-19 bill include $540 plus million dollars to continue testing currently being funded by the federal government. A potential ban on evictions. Speaker Vos has said those are non-starters with him. When it comes to other stuff like mitigation efforts, a mask mandate for example, Governor Evers and Republicans are definitely far apart on that, too. They’re meeting but we don’t know what they can agree to.

Frederica Freyberg:

That seems like a good first step. Shawn Johnson, thanks very much for joining us.

Shawn Johnson:

Thanks Fred.