Highest-ranking GOP assemblyman in WI against another audit of 2020 vote

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the highest-ranking GOP member of the Wisconsin Assembly, said on Tuesday that he is against conducting another audit of the state’s 2020 presidential election results.

Vos made his comments following state Rep. Janel Brandtjen’s (R) call for a “comprehensive, forensic examination” of the results on Monday. Vos explained during a Tuesday hearing that he disagreed with his colleague, saying that he would not be in support of providing extra resources for her effort, according to ABC News.

“Certainly, if she wants to add extra resources from her two staff people in the office to be able to assist the investigators that we have … we welcome everybody to offer whatever evidence that they have,” Vos said. “But as far as her launching her own investigation, I don’t know what that would prove.”

Many Republicans have echoed former President Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election was tainted by widespread voter fraud. 

Following the November results, the Trump campaign mounted a slew of legal efforts to challenge the 2020 results and several election audits were performed, including in Georgia, where President Biden bested Trump by less than a percentage point. Multiple federal courts have rejected lawsuits from Trump, and election officials as well as former Attorney General William Barr said that there was no evidence to support claims of widespread fraud. 

GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin initiated a review of the election results by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau in February that is expected to conclude this fall, according to ABC News.

Vos also hired three retired police detectives to carry out a review of the election funded by taxpayer dollars, noting that the audit would not be carried out by “computer science people.”

“We’re already doing the forensic audit,” Vos said during the press conference.

“So just like perhaps President Trump was misinformed about what we’re actually doing in Wisconsin, I feel like my colleague Rep. Brandtjen is misinformed about what we’re doing in Wisconsin because we’re already doing a forensic audit,” he added, pointing to comments the former president made claiming that Vos was “working hard to cover up election corruption.” 

Trump lost the Badger State to Biden by 0.6 percentage points after carrying it over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.