With no evidence, Kleefisch calls 2020 presidential election ‘rigged’

MADISON – Republican candidate for governor Rebecca Kleefisch is escalating her criticism of how the final presidential election was carried out in Wisconsin, calling it a “rigged” contest regardless of court docket rulings and recounts confirming the result.

The characterization comes as a fourth candidate enters the Republican major with the power to pour hundreds of thousands into his marketing campaign and a backstory that would attraction to the pinnacle of the celebration, former President Donald Trump. 

Seventeen months after the 2020 election, grievances over its end result loom over Wisconsin’s 2022 races as Trump continues to stress Republicans to maintain alive his false claims of widespread fraud to construct momentum for his anticipated 2024 marketing campaign for president. 

Recounts, court docket rulings, state audits and a research by a distinguished conservative group have confirmed President Joe Biden received Wisconsin in 2020 by practically 21,000 votes. Not one of the evaluations have proven fraud manipulated the result of the election.

Kleefisch on Tuesday in contrast choices made by Wisconsin election officers to navigate the coronavirus pandemic to these of NFL quarterback Tom Brady in 2015 when he was accused of utilizing deflated footballs to achieve a bonus for the New England Patriots in a playoff recreation. 

“I usually examine this to deflategate,” Kleefisch mentioned in a Tuesday interview on WTAQ.

“They received the sport. Did they win legitimately? Did they replay the sport? These are the questions that we face proper now on the very best degree of governance,” she mentioned. 

“I can not actually let you know ends in Pennsylvania and in Arizona and different states the place there are questions. I’m centered completely on Wisconsin. And what I can let you know about Wisconsin, is that I really feel prefer it was rigged.”

She cited election officers’ choices to make use of poll drop packing containers, ship absentee ballots to residents of nursing houses that weren’t permitting ballot staff in to assist with voting, and to simply accept funding from Fb founder Mark Zuckerberg to manage the election. 

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Kleefisch mentioned candidates who do not tackle the 2020 election needs to be disqualified in voters’ minds, referring to Tim Michels, a rich building govt from Waukesha County who entered the race final week.

Michels held a rally Monday to launch his marketing campaign for governor and didn’t point out the final presidential election in his nine-minute speech.

However Michels mentioned in an interview earlier Monday that he has “questions” concerning the 2020 election and would signal into legislation laws Democratic incumbent Gov. Tony Evers vetoed earlier this 12 months that will change how elections are administered in Wisconsin. He didn’t instantly have a response to Kleefisch’s feedback. 

“Lots of people have questions concerning the final election. So do I,” Michels mentioned Monday on WISN-AM. “If we do not have honest, clear elections, our entire system goes to return aside.”

Kayla Anderson, a marketing campaign spokeswoman for Evers, mentioned Kleefisch’s feedback are injecting “extra chaos and division into Wisconsin elections.”

“We don’t must waste extra time and taxpayer cash on this politically motivated train,” Anderson mentioned in a press release. “Governor Evers plans to proceed doing the precise factor and preventing to make sure each eligible voter is ready to take part in secure, honest and safe elections.”

A spokesman for Kleefisch didn’t instantly reply questions from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Trump efficiently pressured Meeting Speaker Robin Vos this week into preserving open a taxpayer-funded assessment of the 2020 election overseen by former Supreme Courtroom Justice Michael Gableman. 

The assessment has a price range of $676,000 and has lasted six months longer than initially deliberate as Gableman has missed deadlines to provide a remaining report into his probe.

To this point, Gableman’s studies to Meeting lawmakers largely embrace particulars of how the 2020 election was administered that have been already uncovered by others. In one other case, he reported incorrect nursing dwelling voter turnout knowledge to allege suspicions of fraud contained in the services. 

Regardless of being funded by taxpayers, the assessment has not been clear. A Dane County choose just lately ordered Gableman to cease deleting information associated to his assessment as a part of a lawsuit introduced by a liberal group alleging Gableman has withheld requested information. 

Gableman argued he may delete information he deemed to be “irrelevant” or “ineffective” to his effort. State legislation bars this follow, nonetheless. 

Kleefisch mentioned Tuesday that Gableman’s probe ought to proceed.

“I additionally had a very lengthy discuss with Gableman over the weekend, and he’s nonetheless uncovering issues and I believe these subpoenas shall be helpful to figuring out new issues or maybe even solidifying different issues that we have already lined in larger quantity,” Kleefisch mentioned.

Gableman has issued dozens of wide-ranging subpoenas and requested a choose to jail elections officers, mayors and others who he claims aren’t cooperating with him. The targets of his subpoenas have mentioned they’re following the legislation and requested the choose to search out Gableman should interview them in public and never behind closed doorways, as Gableman needs.

“If for no different cause, then to guarantee that folks really feel that their vote goes to rely and we’re not jeopardizing our democratic republic by disenfranchising voters, that I believe it should proceed,” Kleefisch mentioned. 

Contact Molly Beck at molly.beck@jrn.com. Comply with her on Twitter at @MollyBeck.