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Former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, a conservative, speaks in front of a green-screened Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers in a YouTube video update on the partisan review of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin.

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It started in a conference hall in Wisconsin Dells. From there, it took a trip to Arizona to observe the Cyber Ninjas, and made a stop in South Dakota for a symposium led by MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.

Next came the YouTube videos, the subpoenas, the appearances at city council meetings and the hits on conservative talk radio shows. 

This is the trajectory of former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman’s GOP-backed review of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin — an effort that Democrats have decried as partisan and several election administration experts told the Cap Times is “bizarre” and “amateurish.”

Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, called the probe a “$700,000 boondoggle to prove something that’s already been proven.” Attorney General Josh Kaul, also a Democrat, questioned whether aspects of the review are even legal.

Additionally, a bipartisan group of experts on election administration told the Cap Times the results of Gableman’s review and other similar efforts should not be trusted.

All the while, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has stood by Gableman, saying Monday that the conservative former member of the state’s high court will continue the review “in order to restore confidence in our election system.”

Vos, Gableman and Rep. Janel Brandtjen, chairwoman of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, which is purportedly overseeing the investigation, all declined or did not respond to requests for interviews for this story.

The $680,000, taxpayer-funded review has been riddled with mishaps since it began.

On Sept. 14, Gableman requested that election clerks in all 72 Wisconsin counties preserve “any and all records and evidence” related to the election. The request was not sent from an official, secure email address; rather, it came from a Gmail address with the name “john delta” attached to it. Many clerks told the Associated Press they did not receive the email or it was routed to their “junk” folders.

A week later, Wisconsinites heard from Gableman directly for the first time. The former state Supreme Court justice posted an almost six-minute video to a newly created YouTube channel, claiming the review “will be guided by a search for the truth and not by political priorities, or political timetables.” In a second video published earlier this month, Gabeman attacked Evers, saying the governor has “an incomplete and misguided view of what we’re doing” and that he is “completely ignorant” of the concerns of Wisconsin voters.

The subpoenas issued by Gableman — and signed by Vos — contained what appeared to be a significant typo. On Oct. 1, the former justice issued the first subpoenas of the review to election officials in Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Racine and Kenosha, as well as the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The subpoenas — regardless of city — contained a cover letter asking for “documents related to the 2020 state and federal election in the City of Green Bay.”

On Oct. 6, Gableman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Most people, myself included, do not have a comprehensive understanding or even any understanding of how elections work.”

Then, the day after a second round of subpoenas were served, Gableman backtracked, indicating municipal clerks and mayors would no longer be required to provide secret testimony to his team in Brookfield. The day after that, he said he would force officials to sit for testimony unless agreements were reached with each municipality. 

On Thursday, Gableman released a third YouTube video about the subpoenas. In it, he said he would not require subpoenaed election clerks and mayors to testify in Brookfield as scheduled.

Speaking in front of a green-screened Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers, he said, “the law does not empower the Office of Special Counsel to engage in any kind of prosecution,” despite previously having offered immunity from prosecution to officials willing to testify.

Election experts criticize ‘amateur’ election review

The haphazard nature of the review reflects its amateurism and, accordingly, its results should not be trusted, said University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden, an expert on election administration, and former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican and the state’s former top election official.

Burden and Grayson in June published a report that evaluated the election review in Maricopa County, Arizona, spearheaded by the Florida-based Cyber Ninjas. Many of their criticisms of the Arizona review — which once again reaffirmed President Joe Biden’s victory in the state — also apply to the review in Wisconsin, they said. The two spoke separately to the Cap Times this week.

Deficiencies in the Wisconsin election review include a lack of transparency about how and why Gableman was selected to lead the effort; a lack of transparency about the review itself; a lack of impartiality on behalf of the reviewers; the significant delay between the election and the start of the review; inconsistent procedures in the review; unfounded allegations made by Gableman; and insufficient security, including use of unsecured Gmail accounts, according to the two experts.

“It's bizarre,” Burden said of the review. “And I think it's harmful. One of the motivations for these reviews is supposed to be to boost voter confidence in the system, to help people verify that the election was valid. But by doing this work in secret, and in a partisan way, in this kind of slipshod, amateur, on-again-off-again way, it's probably undermining confidence rather than boosting it.”

Grayson agreed, calling Gableman and his team “faux auditors” and asking: “Why are they doing this?”

“There doesn't appear to be a rationale for this, other than … partisan or political purposes,” the Republican former election official said. “There doesn't appear to be an interest in truly trying to understand how the last election worked, how we can improve it or how we can highlight the … good work (that was) done (so it can be replicated).”

‘In public and immediately’

Both Burden and Grayson said there are ways to evaluate elections in a responsible and professional manner, and that such reviews should happen to determine how to improve election administration.

But, Burden said, reviews should occur “in public and immediately” after elections so they can be trusted.

Both experts pointed to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, formed by former President Barack Obama after the 2012 election, as a model for a cooperative and fruitful example of how to review an election.

The commission consisted of 10 members, five Democrats and five Republicans — including Grayson. It brought together academics, election officials from all levels of government and attorneys to evaluate how “local and state elections officials (can) improve all voters’ experience in casting their ballots.”

The commission had a defined timetable for its work, held public hearings in addition to private meetings with election officials nationwide and, most importantly, was bipartisan, Grayson said. After it completed its work, the commission made a series of unanimous recommendations on how election administration could be improved nationwide — showing, Grayson said, that Democrats and Republicans can work together to address elections issues .

“It was really rewarding,” Grayson said of his work on the commission. “I’m really proud of the work we did.”

By contrast, the two pointed out, the review in Wisconsin shares very few of the same elements.

For example, the experts said, the reviewers include a former Trump administration attorney who previously wrote that “the 2020 presidential election was stolen, fair and square. No use complaining.” Gableman has also made unfounded claims that the election was stolen.

The attorney, Andrew Kloster, has also previously acknowledged that he is not an election attorney and has a limited understanding of how elections work.

“Someone who's already reached a predetermined conclusion (about the election) being chosen to lead this effort, that’s just not someone who would be trusted,” Burden said of Gableman.

He added about Gableman: “He's admitted he's uninformed about how elections work despite having been a former (state) Supreme Court justice that dealt with election issues for 10 years while he was on the court, and he's really been taken in by some conspiracy theorists in Arizona and by Mike Lindell, whose symposium he attended in South Dakota.”

“It's just all of the things you would not do if you wanted to have an above the board, trustworthy process that was supposed to inspire voter confidence,” Burden said of the review.

Grayson agreed with Burden’s assessment, and offered a concluding thought:

“Come on, Wisconsin, you’re better than this.”

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