Judge rules Wisconsin elections leader is ‘legally’ in position, handing blow to GOP
A Wisconsin judge ruled that the state’s top election leader can legally remain in her position, handing a blow to the Republican-controlled state Senate that tried to oust her.
The GOP-controlled Wisconsin Senate voted in September to fire Meagan Wolfe, the top election official, from her position at the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), after months of threatening to remove her over how she handled the 2020 election.
They falsely claimed that Wolfe orchestrated a plan to rig the election in the state — a swing state that President Biden secured by over 20,000 votes.
Biden’s win in Wisconsin has withstood multiple partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review and multiple state and federal lawsuits, the Associated Press reported.
Dane County Circuit Court Judge Ann Peacock declared Friday that she agreed with the WEC, which argued that stability in its elections system ahead of the 2024 election would be best for the public. Thus, Wolfe was cleared to remain in the role.
The injunction, Peacock wrote in her order, will “provide stability to protect against any further legally unsupported removal attempts” against Wolfe.
Democrats argued that the state Senate vote to oust Wolfe from her position was not held properly and they don’t have the power to remove her from her position or appoint an interim administrator.
Peacock’s decision renders the the state Senate's statute removing Wolfe as moot. The defendants were also barred under the ruling from taking official actions contrary to the order and their counterclaim and pending motions were nixed.
“I hope this will put an end to attempts by some to target nonpartisan election officials and fabricate reasons to disrupt Wisconsin elections,” Wolfe said in a statement to the AP.
“The effort to undermine me was especially cruel given that the defendant legislators themselves admitted in court that I remain the lawful administrator," she added.