12/08/2020
As many of you know, the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, on which I serve, will meet Friday.
I’ve received thousands and thousands of messages from people concerned about the Wisconsin presidential election. While most people have expressed concern that rampant fraud may have been carried out right under our noses and that the reliability of future election results are in doubt, some have shared the view that they believe the legislature’s investigation of the election process is a sham. It saddens and frustrates me that even some my Democrat colleagues in the legislature are claiming that investigating the conduct of an election after the fact weakens our democratic institutions and these are the same individuals who called for scurrilous and unfounded investigations of President Trump colluding with Russia to fix the 2016 election.
My colleagues and I are sworn to uphold the Constitution and laws of our state and nation. When people are uncertain about the reliability of our elections, it is our duty to conduct a full investigation.
The press has done a great deal of damage by spending the last four years calling into question the 2016 election and now anointing a president-elect before any candidate has conceded or the Electoral College has voted. The inconsistent standards applied by the media to determine the reliability of elections has unsurprisingly cost the media the public’s trust. The media has a great deal of fact checking and quality reporting to do before it once again earns the confidence to declare a winner of a presidential election.
Until the public can trust the press, holders of public office like myself must provide the public with detailed evidence to demonstrate how our elections were conducted. A thorough and serious investigation of the election is warranted and necessary for the future stability of our nation.
