By Ta’Leah Van Sistine, Community Reporter
Two Chippewa Valley Republican leaders told the Chippewa Valley Post they had no strong reactions to last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that effectively ended President Donald Trump’s post-election maneuvering.
The Court on Dec. 11 dismissed Texas’ request to sue Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin over how those states conducted their elections.
Neither Scott Bolstad, the Eau Claire County Republican Party chairman, or David Sanders, his Chippewa County counterpart, said they agreed with comments by the chairman of the Fond du Lac County Republican Party that there was no fraud in the election and that it was time to move on.
Sanders also noted several concerns with the way voting in Wisconsin was conducted.
Efforts to reach the Dunn County Republican Party chairman by email and phone brought no response.
The Texas case
Bolstad said he really didn’t have an opinion on the Supreme Court’s dismissal of Texas’ attempt to overturn election results in four battleground states.
“Whatever happens is going to happen,” Bolstad said.
Sanders, in response to the Supreme Court’s dismissal of Texas’ request, said he just wants voting laws to be followed everywhere, which he doesn’t believe happened in this election.
“The Supreme Court’s (denial of the case) didn’t say people can break the law,” Sanders said.
‘No fraud’ in this election
Rohn Bishop, chairman of the Republican Party of Fond du Lac County, shared comments on Twitter last month, saying he believed “There’s no fraud” in this election.
According to Wisconsin Watch, Bishop said the Trump campaign’s attempts to throw out absentee ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties was “going too far because that’s not voter fraud and those people who voted did nothing wrong.”
In an interview with the CVPost, Bolstad said he wasn’t “going to talk about Rohn Bishop.”
“What he says is on him,” Bolstad said. “I know what you’re fishing for and you’re not going to get it.”
When asked about any other post-election reactions he would like to share, Bolstad declined to comment.
Sanders said he doesn’t know Bishop, so he isn’t able to comment on what Bishop’s view might be, but he said he has personally read that the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) allowed clerks to “fix” ballots.
“That’s directly against Wisconsin voting laws,” he said.
WEC policy on absentee ballots
According to a fact-check by USA Today, this claim was circulated on social media and conservative websites, and was featured in the Daily Wire and a WISN radio story.
The fact-check explained that a WEC policy, which has been in place since October 2016, says clerks “must take corrective actions in an attempt to remedy a witness address error.”
It adds that “the Commission’s guidance is that municipal clerks shall do all that they reasonably can to obtain any missing part of the witness address.”
This allows the clerk to resolve “any missing witness address information” through “personal knowledge, voter registration information (or) a phone call with the voter or witness.” USA Today noted that the witness does not need to appear in person to add a missing address.
Other concerns
Sanders said he also heard of people discovering that ballots were submitted illegally on behalf of themselves or others.
“I’ve actually read information from people that I know and trust that checked into their maiden names and their family members that have passed away to see if those people had voted,” Sanders said. “They were shocked at what they found.”
As post-election reactions continue to emerge, Sanders said he would like the Wisconsin State Legislature to change election processes that “enabled us to have all this calamity going on around us.”
“Someone has to take control in the (state) Department of Administration of the Wisconsin Elections Committee and straighten it out,” Sanders said.
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