Associated Press
Madison, Wis. – The push by Republicans to conduct partisan ballot reviews similar to the one that unfolded last year in Arizona has spread beyond the battleground states where former President Donald Trump disputed his loss, an effort that has had mixed legislative success but has sown doubts about whether future elections can be trusted.
While most of the bills are unlikely to become law, the debates and public hearings in GOP-controlled state legislative chambers have added fuel to the false claims that widespread fraud cost Trump reelection in 2020.
“They’re really tearing down democracy, and they don’t think they are,” said Scott McDonell, the election clerk in Dane County, Wisconsin, home to the state capital.
The proposals come after flawed Republican-ordered reviews in Arizona and Wisconsin where GOP lawmakers gave the job of examining the previous election to partisan actors.
In Arizona, the contract went to a Florida-based firm with no previous experience in election audits but with a CEO who had expressed support for conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 presidential results. In Wisconsin, the Republican leader of the state Assembly appointed a retired state Supreme Court justice who declared the election stolen even before he began his review.
Similar efforts are being pursued by Republicans in the presidential battleground states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, also won by Biden.
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