EDITORIAL: Retribution in the aftermath of a failed election overturn

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said the recall effort aimed at him by supporters of Donald Trump “is no surprise since the people involved cannot seem to get over any election in which their preferred candidate doesn’t win.”

In letter to the editor published in last week’s Ozaukee Press, the Wisconsin state director of Keep Our Republic, a national bipartisan organization devoted to election integrity, called on “all leaders, regardless of party affiliation, to respect the outcomes of our elections.”

Do we really need to be reminded that the government representatives of this republic are chosen by popular vote, not the preferences of candidates’ supporters?

The answer is yes, and it is especially true in Wisconsin.

It has been nearly four years since the last presidential election, but election deniers are still acting out their fantasy that Joe Biden won the Wisconsin presidential vote through fraudulent voting.

They’re trying to recall Vos because he would not follow Trump’s telephoned instructions to illegally overturn the election by decertifying it. They’re clamoring for the impeachment of Meagan Wolfe, administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, because Trump said, without any evidence, that she rigged the election. They’re supporting Trump-endorsed candidates for state and congressional offices because the candidates are mouthing the stolen-election mantra.

Even though almost everyone is aware of the following—maybe even the deniers have gotten wind of it—it bears repeating: A recount in all 72 counties in Wisconsin, court decisions and audits by the Legislative Audit Bureau and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a legal firm that champions conservative causes, confirmed Biden won by about 21,000 votes and voting fraud did not affect the election.

Even former Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman, who was hired by the Legislature’s Republican majority for the express purpose of finding evidence of election fraud, confirmed Trump’s loss, albeit in a bumbling way. Gableman spent more than a year investigating and $2 million in taxpayer dollars and came up with nothing—except censure for his own conduct, including being found guilty of serial violations of the Open Records Law and contempt of court.

After being laughed off the election-denial stage, Gableman has resurfaced, now as spokesman for the Racine County group working to recall Vos. Progressive critics of Vos may see some karma at work here, because he was instrumental in hiring Gableman. He also fired him, hence Gableman’s quest for revenge.

Last week, Vos said, “Mike Gableman is probably the single biggest embarrassment that I have ever had.”

In a head-spinning take on the voting fraud issue, Vos also said the group Gableman represents had “engaged in election fraud on a massive scale.”

He was referring to the hundreds of bogus petition signatures submitted in the first recall attempt. The Racine County district attorney is investigating complaints of signatures that were forged or were the names of people who were not citizens or were not old enough to vote.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission ruled there were not enough valid signatures to force a recall election. Now a second recall attempt is underway.

The drive to oust the speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly is a textbook example of how election denial has poisoned politics. Vos, of Burlington, is a devout conservative and an effective legislator and leader of legislators. Much to the disgust of Democrats and progressives, he has delivered victories or palatable compromises to conservatives for years on issues such as taxes, spending and diversity in public institutions, even with a Democrat in power as governor. Yet in the minds of conservatives supporting his recall, none of this outweighs the sin of refusing to aid the attempted overturn of Trump’s election loss. Vos is, therefore, to be punished.

Punishment is the point. The election outcome can’t be changed, but retribution apparently is the next best thing.

Keeping the stolen-election conspiracy theory alive may have another purpose—to set the stage for refusing to accept the result of this year’s presidential election. If the 2020 election deniers respect the outcome of the 2024 election, it will likely be only because their candidate won.