Senator Stafsholt: Supports Senate Election Investigation

MADISON, Wis. / (Press Release) -- Rob Stafsholt (R - New Richmond) issued the following statement in response to the non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) audit of the November 2020 election:

“Since being elected into the Senate this year, I have authored and supported legislation focusing on election integrity and reform. We looked into the 2020 November election and passed legislation that placed restrictions on ballot harvesting, included early voting security procedures, solutions to prevent late night ballot dumps and fixed abuses of the indefinitely confined voter status. Unfortunately, Governor Evers has already vetoed those bills and others that could have addressed some of the audits findings.”

In addition to passing election reform legislation, my colleagues and I requested a comprehensive audit of the results and administration of the November 2020 election. The audit, which was released Friday, issued 30 recommendations for improvement to the Wisconsin Elections Commission as well as 18 issues for the Legislature to consider.

“The audit showed numerous failures within the Wisconsin Election Commission to administrate election laws in Wisconsin. It is upsetting that the agency in charge of administering elections refuses to follow the law. The Legislature cannot allow that to happen.”

According to the audit, the City of Madison did not allow them to physically handle their election records. In addition, county clerks indicated that they would not be able to handle ballots for Milwaukee County and the Town of Little Suamico. Combined, the City of Madison, Milwaukee County, and the Town of Little Suamico accounted for 623,700 of the 3.3 million ballots cast in the November 2020 General Election (18.9 percent).

“Failure to participate in this audit is completely unacceptable, Milwaukee County and the City of Madison refused to allow LAB to have full access to their election records. The Legislature must act to ensure that those documents are turned over. Even though we know Governor Evers will continue to stand in the way of any type of common sense election reform, we must continue to do everything in our power to restore integrity and trust in the election process. I fully support the Senate launching an election investigation as soon as possible.”