Eight months ago, in order to appease TFG, Wisconsin Speaker of the Assembly Robin Vos ordered yet another audit of the 2020 elections, Keep in mind that there already had been numerous court cases, reviews and audits done, and none of them turned up a damn thing. Not even one done by an ultra-conservative group, Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty.
But Boss Vos didn't want to become a national embarrassment like Arizona did with their fraudit. In order to give his fraudit the resemblance of respectability, he hired former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. Apparently Gableman came with all the traits Vos was looking for, such as being a reliable Republican rubber stamp and a Big Lie acolyte, and confessing that he didn't have a clue on how elections work:
"Most people, myself included, do not have a comprehensive understanding or even any understanding of how elections work," Gableman said in an interview late Tuesday before addressing the Green Bay City Council about his plans.
Gableman's acknowledgment that he does not know how elections work comes 10 months after he told a crowd of supporters of former President Donald Trump without evidence that elected officials had allowed bureaucrats to "steal our vote." Recounts in the state's two most populous counties and court decisions determined Joe Biden won by more than 20,000 votes, or 0.6 percentage points.
Vos gave Gableman $676,000 and free rein to run his investigation. Gableman immediately got to work by jetting all over the country to meet with "experts" such as the Cyber Ninja Turtles in Arizona, Mike Lindell in North Dakota and Shiva Ayyadurai in Massachusetts. He also hired a crew of investigators who just coincidentally happened to also be believers of The Big Lie. What are the odds?
Finding his way back to Wisconsin, he set to work in earnest by issuing subpoenas to people like mayors, city clerks, and city election clerks. He then had to issue them again because he did it illegally the first time. He then issued them a third time after meeting resistance by some and not getting the answers he wanted by others.
Finally, on Tuesday, he was ready to give a report to his findings to the state assembly and boy, oh boy, what a shitshow it was:
In total, he had 26 issues with the 2020 elections including things like drop boxes for ballots, private parties helping with GOTV efforts and allowing people he deemed to be too old to vote to vote. Pro tip to Gableman: Regardless of how old a person is, they still have the right to vote until a court takes it away. Gableman also suggested to doing away with the Wisconsin Election Commission and putting the elections under the auspices of one or two partisan elected officials.
But the doozy was when Gableman suggested that the legislature consider calling the 2020 elections null and void. This suggestion was met with bipartisan blowback and quickly dismissed by someone who actually knows how elections work:
Republican lawmakers and legislative attorneys have repeatedly said overturning the election after it was certified by the state and Congress would be illegal and impossible. And in his report, Gableman makes clear that his purpose is not to challenge the state’s certification. But an appendix does “sketch how that might be done,” he said.
“It is clear that the Wisconsin Legislature could lawfully take steps to decertify electors in any presidential election, for example in light of violations of state election law that did or likely could have affected the outcome of the election,” according to the report.
UW-Madison political science professor and elections administration expert Kenneth Mayer said the claim is meaningless.
“Even if the Legislature did pass some sort of ‘decertification’ now it would have no legal effect,” he said. “Once the electors have cast their ballots, and they have been counted in Congress, that’s the end of it.”
Almost all of Gableman's issues have already been resolved in courts and through the numerous audits, fraudits and reviews. But even putting those debunked arguments aside, Gableman's report isn't worth the paper it's written on. He couldn't even get basic, inarguable facts straight. For example, Gableman testified that his team of investigators visited 24 nursing homes in Dane County, even though there's only 18 there. Apparently, visiting imaginary nursing homes helps when you need to fudge your other "facts."
