Thread by @benwikler

Democracy in Wisconsin is under brutal assault with the GOP pushing to charge members of our bipartisan election commission with felonies. We’re fighting back—and the stakes couldn't be higher. Help us hit our Nov goal of 101 new monthly donors by midnight:wisdems.org/november

Republicans are trying to seize control from our state’s election commission and put the GOP-dominated Wisconsin state legislature in charge of elections. This would open a direct path to Republican politicians overturning election results they don’t like.

Republican Speaker Robin Vos says that most of the members of Wisconsin's bipartisan Elections Commission should “probably” face criminal charges.

wkow.com/news/vos-says-…

Vos is accusing the commissioners of committing felonies for telling clerks to mail absentee ballots to nursing homes instead of visiting them in person and risking spreading COVID or disenfranchising elderly and disabled voters.

Wisconsin’s most powerful legislative Republican isn’t just musing about throwing elections commissioners into jail—he’s also attacking elections professionals, calling for the resignation of the Elections Commission’s excellent, nonpartisan Administrator.
jsonline.com/story/news/pol…

Meanwhile, #RadicalRebecca Kleefisch, Scott Walker’s former lieutenant governor, running for Wisconsin governor against Governor Evers, has sued in an attempt to further erode trust in our elections.
madison.com/wsj/news/local…

WI Republicans, including Vos & the Walker-Kleefisch administration, created the WI Elections Commission in 2015 because they (baselessly) claimed the previous agency was biased against them. The WEC staff report to a bipartisan commission made of 3 GOP & 3 Democratic appointees.

During the 2020 election, local elections officials dealt w nightmare pandemic conditions. Vos refused to convene the state legislature to help, leaving local officials to administer a massive election with limited resources. Vos could've stepped in to help the WEC but he didn’t.

Only after Trump lost the 2020 election did Republicans suddenly decide that the decisions they couldn’t be bothered to help with, made in part by Commissioners they appointed, in a system they designed, were somehow invalid.

In short, they refused to accept the outcome they set in motion.

The GOP designed the rules of the game but when they lost the game, they decided to criminalize the referees… & make themselves the referees for the next round. In reality, these attacks are about one thing: they want to be able to overturn election results when they don’t win.

Meanwhile, Ron Johnson (@TheWorstSenator) called for a unilateral takeover of elections in Wisconsin by the GOP-dominated State Legislature. To do this *legally* would require a law signed by the Governor. But Johnson’s proposing an *illegal* takeover.
jsonline.com/story/news/pol…

So, to review:
- Speaker Vos “probably” wants criminal charges
- Candidate for governor #RadicalRebcca Kleefisch wants a partisan court to meddle in elections
- Senator Johnson wants the legislature to seize control

- And all of them are trying to destroy a functioning system—that worked well, helped record numbers of voters safely vote during a global pandemic, and was free of any widespread fraud—so they can overturn elections.

This is today's GOP.

This should ring GIANT alarm bells for anyone who doesn’t want a slide into autocracy. The Republicans in Wisconsin are criminalizing election administration, undermining the basic function of democracy—because they lost in 2020 and want to steal 2022/24.

And remember—the stakes aren’t just in Wisconsin. In 2022, our U.S. Senate race could determine majority control. Our Gov race will shape voting rights in 2024, and WI in ‘24 is the state most likely to once again determine the presidency.

This latest wave of attacks is part of a much bigger push by the GOP to spread disinformation about the 2020 election in order to justify the takeover of election apparatus in coming elections. It’s happening all over. Wisconsin’s varietal is particularly toxic.

And the key thing is that we have the tools to fight back—and win. We can preserve and even strengthen democracy in Wisconsin. In fact, we’re in the process of doing that right now. More on that down thread. First, some background on how we got here.

This most recent wave of attacks didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the fruit of a GOP effort to poison the public (or at least GOP voters) on a 2020 election that has been repeatedly found to be free, fair, transparent, and secure.

You might have heard about the sham election “review” headed by former Wisconsin state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. Gableman claimed last year that the election was stolen without giving any evidence. That apparently qualified him to run an “investigation.”

Robin Vos appointed Gableman to oversee the sham investigation, authorizing a budget of $676,000 for the “review,” funded by Wisconsin taxpayers.
wkow.com/news/politics/…

Gableman has hired 5 people—but has resisted revealing who they are. He even admitted that he doesn’t understand how elections work, and then accused reporters who accurately reported his words of being Nazis.
jsonline.com/story/news/pol…

Gableman has been meeting with conspiracy-mongers like Mike Lindell and a variety of other fraudsters who’ve been pushing the big lie. But his inquiry isn’t the only investigation underway.
jsonline.com/story/news/pol…

There’s also the sham led by State Assembly Elections Committee Chair Janel Brandtjen, notorious for leading a delegation to Arizona.

Brandtjen drew widespread condemnation by issuing a string of fake subpoenas—which were unenforceable because she doesn’t have the authority to issue them.
urbanmilwaukee.com/2021/09/07/bac…

There’s also the report the legislature requested from the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau. This found no widespread voter fraud and that the election was safe & secure. But the GOP is still wielding it as justification for attacks on the Commission.
abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireS…

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Senate Republicans have just announced their own sham investigation. It’s a constant circus of sham investigations, kicking up dust, ignoring inconvenient contrary evidence, and attempting to use the dust as cover to seize power.
jsonline.com/story/news/pol…

The brick wall is named Tony Evers. He’s the governor of Wisconsin, he’s a Democrat, and he’s committed to democracy. The WI GOP has already passed six voter suppression bills. Gov. Evers vetoed every one of them.
madison.com/wsj/news/local…

The GOP also just passed hideously gerrymandered maps through the state legislature.

💥SLAM! Right into the brick wall once again—Governor Evers vetoed the GOP’s maps, sending the issue to the courts for resolution.
wpr.org/evers-vetoes-r…

Re-electing Gov. Evers means defeating #RadicalRebecca Kleefisch & other Republicans who want to attack our democracy. Kleefisch has already said she’d sign anti-voting legislation if she gets elected as governor. She can’t be allowed that power.

https://twitter.com/benwikler/status/1443234717965422604

The second core priority is defeating Ron Johnson.

With just one more Democrat in the Senate, we’d have a far better shot at passing federal voting rights legislation. And boy, there is a LOT of energy on the ground to do that, as seen during #1Year2Win.

https://twitter.com/benwikler/status/1459320984629088260

The third thing is what we do *in order* to win the Governor and Senate races in 2022—which includes a massive investment in year-round voter protection. This program, which we launched in partnership with Stacey Abrams’s @fairfightaction in 2020, is doing critical work.

Our @WisDems Voter Protection team is running a year-round voter assistance hotline [phone]) to fight disinformation. We’re helping tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters to feel more empowered to vote and navigate our election system.

The team has launched an online voter guide, which will include early voting and absentee ballot drop box locations, along with all the voting information Wisconsinites need to cast their ballots. vote.wisdems.org

We’ve recruited new poll workers so that come 2022, there will be plenty of poll workers to staff polling places (this means fewer polling place closures!). We’re running a relational organizing program to ensure our families and friends have a plan to vote.

All of this takes time and resources, and long-term investment. And our small-dollar, grassroots monthly donors like you, make it all possible. Help us scale up by becoming a @WisDems monthly donor (any recurring amount!) today: wisdems.org/november

We’re doing all of the above a year out from the midterm elections—the very election that the Wisconsin GOP is eyeing to overhaul. And trust me, Wisconsin Democrats & progressives are ablaze to organize like never before. We saw this during #1Year2Win.

https://twitter.com/benwikler/status/1457838215499599876

During #1Year2Win weekend, we surpassed the goal we set for ourselves (to reach out to 100,000 voters a year out from Nov 2022). This represents more than 3x Gov Evers’ 2018 margin of victory—and more than 4x Biden/Harris’s margin over Trump in 2020.

We know 2022 will be tough. The GOP will do anything to hold power in the state legislature, to take the Gov's office, all leading up to trying to take over the White House.

We’re prepared to take on the fight. Will you become a monthly donor today? wisdems.org/november

Organizing early and consistently means we’ll need your help to sustain the energy. We’re grateful for the work we get to do to protect democracy. And we’re grateful you believe in it, too. Help us hit our goal of 101 new monthly donors. Join us today: wisdems.org/november

If you become a new monthly @WisDems donor today, can you please let me know below? 👇 I want to thank you for joining us!

And if you can't become a monthly donor today, can you please help share my thread (RT or quote-tweet)? It makes a big difference!

One more thing: we must reelect Democratic Attorney General, Josh Kaul. He’s refusing to follow the GOP’s ruse & criminalize election administration. In fact, he called out their BS arguments. A Republican AG would go down a dangerously different path.
cbs58.com/news/shut-this…

90 mins until midnight and ~just~ 1️⃣9️⃣ monthly donors until we hit our November goal!

Start a monthly right away—help @WisDems defend democracy in Wisconsin.

wisdems.org/november

🚨 ONE HOUR! THIS IS IT!

We've got ONE HOUR to midnight. That's ONE HOUR to help us defend democracy from GOP attacks. ONE HOUR to elect Democrats up and down the ballot in 2022.

Are you with us? Start a monthly donation—help us hit our goal: wisdems.org/november

⏰ 30 mins until midnight in Wisconsin and we're just *5* monthly donors until we hit our November goal.

Go, go, go!

Start a monthly donation to fund our year-round organizing program and help us take on Republican attacks on our democracy.

wisdems.org/november

🔥 Just two new monthly donors left until we hit goal!

A HUGE thank-you to everyone who helped us crush our end-of-month fundraising goal last night, with just minutes to go before the clock struck 12. Waking up today, the fight for democracy in Wisconsin is more urgent than ever. You're making it possible.

https://twitter.com/benwikler/status/1465924318580420611

If you want to get a sense of the shape and stakes of the GOP's assault on democracy in Wisconsin, take a minute and read this new AP story:

nbcnews.com/politics/elect…

Also, follow this thread:

https://twitter.com/patrickdmarley/status/1466080841814188032