GOP seeking power over elections in Wis., Minn.

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s secretary of state has no role in elections, but that could change if Republicans are able to flip the seat this year and pass a law that would empower the office with far more responsibilities.

All three GOP candidates competing for the nomination in Tuesday’s primary support the shift and echo former President Donald Trump’s claims that fraud cost him the 2020 election.

If successful, the move would be a bold attempt to shift power to an office Republicans hope to control going into the 2024 presidential election and would represent a reversal from just six years ago when Republicans established the Wisconsin Elections Commission with bipartisan support. In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden won Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes in the presidential race. Doug La Follette, a Democrat, is the current Wisconsin secretary of state.

“This is not about policy,” said David Becker, a former US Justice Department attorney who heads the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “It’s about election outcomes and only election outcomes.”

Once an under-the-radar contest overshadowed by campaigns for governor and state attorney general, races for secretary of state are drawing tremendous interest and money this year, driven largely by the 2020 election, when voting systems and processes came under attack by Trump and his supporters. There is no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election.

There are also primaries Tuesday in secretary of state races in Minnesota, Connecticut, and Vermont. In Minnesota, the leading Republican candidate has called the 2020 election “rigged” and has faced criticism for a video attacking three prominent Jewish Democrats, including the current secretary of state, Democrat Steve Simon, who is seeking reelection.