Wisconsin State Representative Janel Brandtjen is chair of the Committee on Campaigns and Elections and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Government Accountability and Oversight for the Wisconsin Assembly. On May 25, she posted a press release titled 'November 2020 Election Findings':
"As much as the Democratic Party and the mainstream media would like to move on from the 2020 election with their usual 'nothing to see here, please don’t look any further' stances, we have uncovered real problems with the 2020 election. We are not going to look away from the two clerks in Milwaukee and Madison who turned 70,000 indefinitely confined voters into roughly 260,000 voters without an ID. We’re not going to just pretend that Mark Zuckerberg, who was busy using Facebook to silence conservative speech on the front end, was not funding 'Get out the Vote' efforts inwards that vote heavily democrat on the back end... The November 2020 election had a lot of irregularities, and to ignore them would not serve the people of Wisconsin."
Now Brandten has posted another press release with a major announcement. The Wednesday posting is titled 'Assembly Campaigns & Elections Committee to Initiate More Intensive Investigation of Fraudulent Activity,' and it promises to request materials needed to conduct a "more thorough investigation of the 2020 fall election" under the committee's "public records retention and investigatory authority:"
"While Wisconsin is in the process of an election audit, I will be working to ensure that it is augmented with the expertise and resources to ensure a comprehensive, forensic examination. As I’ve traveled around our state as Chair of the Campaigns and Elections committee, voters have made it clear that they want a thorough, cyber-forensic examination of tabulators, ballot marking devices, and other election equipment, which I will be helping facilitate on behalf of the committee as the chair."
Here are both of these Brandtjen press releases together:
https://www.scribd.com/document/517543477/Brandtjen-Forensic-Examination-Press-Releases
This new "Comprehensive forensic examination" promised by Brandtjen adds to existing actions by the State of Wisconsin regarding election integrity:
- Numerous bills that would change election law for future elections in Wisconsin. Legislation under consideration would bring new voter ID requirements and changes to the absentee ballot and ballot canvassing procedures, as well as changes to laws related to voting by the indefinitely confined and grants from outside groups.
- An audit by the State's Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) that was ordered by Republican legislators in February and is expected to be completed this Fall. The scope of that audit gives latitude to review the performance, methodology, and error rate of voting systems in each Wisconsin electoral jurisdiction, including absentee voting and electronic voting. It also allows for a compliance review of how complaints against election officials statewide were handled by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Those complaints include those against Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL).
- Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos' addition of subpoena authority and hiring of three retired Law Enforcement Officers to investigate credible tips of election irregularities.
- State representative Timothy Ramthun's formal request for a "Forensic Audit" component to be added to the LAB audit. He went into detail about specific examination processes, including a review of the digital ballot images, creases, pen punctures, paper quality, and chain of custody.
Despite these existing investigations and legislative efforts, Brandtjen says that "further action is warranted" in reviewing "broader issues." Some of these issues are described:
"The amount of absentee voting taking place has exposed issues surrounding ballot curing, 'indefinitely confined' electors, ballot harvesting, and how our tabulators actually work. The questionable dissemination and application of guidance by the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the repeated failure to follow state elections law by liberal partisan clerks, and the recent revelation of the tens of thousands of new registrations and votes cast by individuals whose driver’s license number, name, and date of birth did not match and were subsequently removed from the state system after their votes were recorded, are simply outrageous. I think these are legitimate concerns, and our oversight has not kept up with current election technology. IP addresses, chain of custody on ballots, and audit trail logs must be thoroughly inspected by cyber-audit technicians in order to provide confidence for voters in our elections, both completed and upcoming."
Photo credit: Wisconsin.gov
Monday's statement by Brandtjen notes that the state of Wisconsin allows for investigation for 22 months following the election and says there are "plenty" of irregularities to investigate. "The people of Wisconsin deserve to know the truth about the 2020 election," she says and acknowledges those against:
"...It is clear there are those who continue to oppose more rigorous examinations of election materials in favor of moving on or were not displeased with the results of the November 2020 election. However, if Wisconsin is to have a credible election system, we must keep up with the technology and perform a full forensic and transparent audit. It is incumbent upon myself and the Campaigns and Elections committee to ensure the records essential to the most rigorous and intensive review are made available to the professionals with the greatest capability to conduct it and increase election process transparency in order for the public’s confidence to be assured."
"It is understandable that private citizens and citizen groups have been seeking to conduct their own investigations that their elected representatives have failed to do," Brandtjen wrote, "but it is important that they be conducted in the most transparent and coordinated way possible."
One such group is Look Ahead America (LAA), which has released the final version of their "Wisconsin Report" today. LAA Executive Director Matt Braynard says the report demonstrates "that the number of illegal ballots [in Wisconsin] is—at minimum—over 157,000." The margin of victory in Wisconsin is currently tallied at around 20,000.
