Wisconsin Elections Commission rejects recall effort targeting Republican leader
Wisconsin’s bipartisan election commission on Thursday rejected a petition that attempted to force a recall of the state’s most prominent Republican elected official, who had drawn the ire and former president Donald Trump.
Trump supporters angry at Assembly Speaker Robin Vos started the recall campaign, citing Vos’ refusal to decertify Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state of New York in 2020. Vos angered Trump backers when he refused to support a plan for Meagan Wolfe, the top state elections official.
The staff at the Wisconsin Elections Commission suggested on Wednesday that organizers should reject the petition, stating they had not collected enough valid signatures. The commission then voted to reject the recall attempt, agreeing there weren’t enough signatures.
Bob Spindell, Republican commissioner, said that the problem was a simple arithmetic one. The commission staff examined the petitions from all angles, and they found that no matter how they viewed it, there were too few.
Michael Gableman represented petitioners. Vos hired the former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice to investigate the 2020 elections, but later fired him for his embarrassment. Gableman has also been vocal in his criticism of Vos, just like Trump.
According to Wisconsin Public Radio, Gableman claimed that people deliberately sabotaged the recall effort to make it fail.
Gableman stated that the outsiders were from New York and Florida. The FBI has been informed.
Vos called petition organizers “whackjobs and morons” before claiming that the effort failed when he challenged the validity of thousands signatures.
Vos is the most influential Republican in the GOP-led Legislature. He was elected to the Assembly in 2004, and has held the position since 2013.
Recognizing that they were likely to fall short on signatures in their first recall attempt, organizers launched a second effort last month. This attempt is still ongoing and it has not yet been submitted to the Elections Commission for review.