MADISON, Wis. — The same Democrat who led the Wisconsin Elections Commission during the contentious 2020 presidential election will be at the helm again in the 2020 election. swing state this year after being unanimously chosen by the bipartisan panel on Monday.
Ann Jacobs was the only committee member nominated to serve as chair, reprising the role she held from 2020 to 2022. The unanimous vote included one from a Republican commissioner who tried to cast Wisconsin’s electoral votes for Donald Trump in 2020, even though he lost the state.
The six-member commission administers and enforces Wisconsin election laws, but elections are run locally by more than 1,800 clerks in towns, villages, cities and counties. State law requires the commission chairman to alternate between a Republican and a Democrat every two years.
Jacobs said in a post on & Elections Comm. staff to make this our strongest election yet.”
Jacobs, in her role as chair, will approve the post-election voting survey and certify the results, including the upcoming presidential elections. The chair also sets the committee’s agenda and influences how questions are phrased, an important power in a panel split between the two parties.
The certification is normally a perfunctory ministerial function performed by the chairman after the local and provincial commissions have certified the results at the local level. After the 2022 midterm elections, then-Chairman Republican Don Millis certified the statewide results in minutes.
However, in 2020, Trump’s Republican supporters tried to slow down developments certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. Republicans that year called on Jacobs to resign after she certified the results even as Trump lawsuits against the election were pending.
One of the members of the election committee who voted in favor of Jacobs’ chairmanship was Republican Bob Spindell. He is one of 10 Republicans who tried to cast Wisconsin’s electoral votes for Trump in 2020.
Spindell and the other false voters, below the settlement of a civil lawsuit, said their actions were “part of an effort to improperly overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
Spindell has rejected calls from Democrats to resign from the committee over his role as a fake voter. He made no comment about Jacobs before voting in favor of her for chairman.
Two lawyers and a Trump aide were accused of crimes last week in Wisconsin in connection with their work on the bogus election system. None of the voters were charged, but Attorney General Josh Kaul said the investigation remains open.
While Jacobs will chair the commission, Wisconsin’s top election official will Meagan Wolfethe impartial administrator of the elections office.
Both Wolfe and the committee have been targets of false claims of election fraud and other improprieties since the 2020 election that Biden won against Trump. Some Republican lawmakers have done so forced to be impeached Wolfe, but have failed.