Elections Commission certifies election results

By TODD RICHMOND Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s election commission leader quietly certified Donald Trump ’s victory on Friday, moving past the chaos that surrounded the 2020 election results in the battleground state.

Commission Chair Ann Jacobs certified results that show Trump won the state with 1,697,626 votes compared to Democrat Kamala Harris' 1,668,229 votes during a morning Zoom teleconference that lasted six minutes.

The certification felt almost anticlimactic compared with the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Trump refused to accept that Joe Biden had won the state by about 21,000 votes.

Trump forced a recount in Dane and Milwaukee counties, the state's two Democratic strongholds, but it didn't change the outcome. Trump later sued to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots in the two counties. He wanted to disqualify absentee ballots cast early and in-person, saying there wasn’t a proper written request made for the ballots; absentee ballots cast by people who claimed “indefinitely confined” status; absentee ballots collected by poll workers at Madison parks; and absentee ballots where clerks filled in missing information on ballot envelopes.

The state Supreme Court dismissed the case in December 2020, finding four of Trump's claims were filed too late and the other was without merit. A federal judge that same month dismissed another lawsuit filed by two Republican legislators, voting rights groups and others seeking to overturn the results.

Facing pressure from Trump, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hired former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman in the spring of 2021 to investigate allegations of fraud and abuse related to the election.

The probe ultimately turned up nothing. The state Office of Lawyer Regulation filed a complaint against Gableman last week accusing him of violating multiple rules of conduct during the investigation. The state Supreme Court will decide what sanctions, if any, Gableman will face.

The election commission's nonpartisan administrator, Meagan Wolfe, found herself the target of conspiracy theorists and election skeptics who falsely claimed she was part of a plot to rig the 2020 election for Biden. Republican legislators are trying to fire her but the commission has filed a lawsuit to keep in her post. That case is currently before the state Supreme Court.

Trump's national victory in November has calmed conservative anger but a vocal faction of the GOP remains deeply skeptical of election processes, particularly the use of mail ballots and scanners to tally votes. Still, several states that saw tumultuous certifications during the 2020 election and 2022 midterms have smoothly approved their results in recent weeks, including Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico.