The Wisconsin election investigator, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, served subpoenas to five of Wisconsin’s largest cities last week. The subpoenas are the latest step in an election audit and are asking for 2020 election records and interviews with officials from the state as well as details regarding the use of private funds.
Gableman is conducting an investigation of the 2020 election in Wisconsin, not to overturn the results which gave President Joe Biden a win by 0.6 percentage points, but to ensure that “government officials [are] accountable to the public for their actions surrounding the elections.”
As reported by The Wisconsin Daily Star, Gableman said that if Wisconsin citizens have concerns about the 2020 election they “want to hear about them.” He also said, “Conversely, if you believe the election went perfectly and have evidence to that effect, we want to see it.”
Gableman is taking testimonies from the subpoenaed city clerks and other employees on October 15 at an office in Brookfield. The subpoenaed individuals, including Meagan Wolfe, the director of the state Elections Commission, and officials in Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Racine and Kenosha, are being asked to “give evidence and testimony with regard to the November 2020 General Election in Wisconsin (the “Election”) including, but not limited to, potential irregularities and/or illegalities related to the Election.”
The individuals also must bring “originals or copies, if originals are not available, of all documents” that they have in their “custody, possession, or control, pertaining to the Election.”
The subpoenas also ask for any communications between election officials and mayors, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, the National Vote at Home Institute, the Elections Group, the Fair Elections Center, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Facebook as well as some other groups.
According to the subpoena, failure to comply could “constitute contempt of the legislature” and doing so could result in “punishment, including imprisonment.”
The subpoena is signed by both Representative Robin Vos, the Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, and Edward Blazel, the Chief Clerk for the Wisconsin State Assembly.
In a statement on Friday, Vos said that Gableman “is dedicated to finding the truth and has determined subpoenas are necessary to move forward in his investigation.”
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, this is the first time Wisconsin lawmakers have issued subpoenas in over 40 years.
It is believed that donations from a group, The Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), who was given $350 million by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is part of the reason that Gableman is subpoenaing these five major Wisconsin cities. As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Most of the money [from CTCL] went to the state’s five most populous cities, where many Democrats live. Those are the communities that received subpoenas on Friday.”
The cover letters for all of the subpoenas said that Gableman was seeking information specifically about the city of Green Bay. It was unclear if that was a typo on Gableman’s part or if his investigation is focusing primarily on Green Bay.
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Hayley Tschetter is a reporter with The Minnesota Sun and The Wisconsin Daily Star | Star News Network. Follow Hayley on Twitter or like her Facebook page. Send news tips to [email protected].
Photo “Michael Gableman” by WI Office of Special Counsel.
