Future of State's Elections Commissioner Catapulted into Uncertainty After Tuesday Vote

Wednesday, June 28th, 2023 -- 10:00 AM

(Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) The future of Wisconsin's top election official was catapulted into uncertainty ahead of the next presidential election after members of the state elections commission failed to agree Tuesday on how to respond to a Republican push for her ouster, a position commissioners said was the result of unfair attacks by "grifters" still peddling baseless theories about the 2020 presidential election.

According to Molly Beck with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, though five of the six commissioners agreed Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe should stay in her job, their vote on whether to reappoint Wolfe before her term expires at the end of June ended in a partisan deadlock on Tuesday as the commission grappled with how to navigate momentum among Senate Republicans to reject her reappointment.

The result leaves leadership of Wisconsin's election agency in turmoil in one of the country's most divided battleground states less than a year before voters are set to head to the polls to take their first votes in deciding the outcome of the next presidential election.

The bipartisan panel of election commissioners met Tuesday facing the end of Wolfe's current four-year term that was defined by the fallout of an onslaught of distortions put forward by former President Donald Trump in 2020 about Wisconsin's system of elections.

The commission's three Republican commissioners voted in favor of reappointing Wolfe while the commission's three Democratic members voted to abstain from the action altogether in an effort to ensure a reappointment of Wolfe would move to the state Senate, where Wolfe could be fired by Republican lawmakers in a confirmation vote.

Democrats argued there was no vacancy to act on at all according to a recent state Supreme Court ruling that allows appointed members to stay in their jobs unless removed. Democratic commissioner Mark Thomsen said he viewed holding a vote as violating the Supreme Court ruling and would subject Wolfe to more unfair criticism and turmoil without first securing support from Republicans who control the state Senate to confirm her reappointment.

But Republican commission chairman Don Millis said by not taking a vote to reappoint Wolfe, the commission was abdicating its duties and the move would only "give these grifters more ammunition if we have a holdover administrator."

All six members of the commission agreed Tuesday that Wolfe was highly qualified, nationally recognized in her field, and successfully led the agency through some of the most contentious years for election officials.

They also agreed her tenuous status as administrator was a result of being the face of the agency during a time when former President Donald Trump's false claims about the 2020 election created a community of conspiracy theorists who made Wolfe a target.

But ultimately the commissioners could not agree on a path forward and the motion to reappoint Wolfe failed without Democrats' participation in the vote. Practically, Tuesday's action leaves Wolfe in her position beyond July 1 when her current term expires.

But her future at the commission is far from clear. Legislative Republicans could respond by declaring a vacancy in Wolfe's position because she has not been reappointed by the commission. Under state law, if there is a vacancy in such a position for 45 days, lawmakers can appoint their own administrator of the state elections commission, a scenario Millis called unlikely but concerning.

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