The Sconi

The Thomas More Society has unveiled results of an investigation this week into the conduct of Wisconsin state and local election officials leading up to the 2020 general election.

The public interest law firm, representing the Wisconsin Voters Alliance (WVA), alleges that election officials violated state laws and election procedures, including accepting private money that corrupted the management of the elections.

Joe Biden carried Wisconsin by about 20,000 votes after Donald Trump carried the state by 22,000 votes in 2016.

The investigation began more than a year before a separate investigation by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, appointed as special counsel by the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections. Gableman presented his report to committee members earlier this week.

Ron Heuer, president of the WVA, said the results of both investigations are similar (WVA supplied Gableman’s office with background materials) but they differ in one key suggested remedy. Gableman asked lawmakers to take a look into decertifying the presidential election results.

“There is no legal path to decertifying the election,” Heuer said.

Erick Kaardal, special counsel for Thomas More, listed 10 areas where the society alleges election officials violated the law. These include use of drop boxes subsequently declared illegal by a county judge, violation of election bribery law by accepting millions in private money provided by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, not using special voting deputies from both parties, to oversee voting by nursing home residents and non-citizens voting.

“The abuses that have been identified and reported would be equally illegal and unacceptable whether they were perpetrated by Republicans or Democrats,” Kaardal said in a statement. “The fact is that if these abuses are not corrected, ordinary Wisconsin voters will continue to lose faith in the state’s election process. Therefore, the illegalities from the last election must be addressed and rectified to protect election integrity moving forward.”

Kaardal said the 93 nursing homes reviewed in five Democratic-run cities of Kenosha, Milwaukee, Racine, Madison and Green Bay, had an unheard of registered resident voting rate of 99%. The counties surrounding Kenosha, Racine and Green Bay (Brown County) all backed Trump in 2020.

He also alleged that the $8.6 million in Zuckerberg money that the five cities spent violated an election bribery law. The money was presented as funding safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The WVA has filed election bribery complaints with the Wisconsin Elections Commission against Green Bay, Kenosha and Racine. Heuer said that complaints against Madison and Milwaukee will be filed in the next few weeks. Milwaukee County and Dane County (Madison area) supported Biden by substantial margins of at least 69% in 2020.