Republicans who control the Wisconsin Senate voted Thursday to dismiss the battleground states

impartial

top election official

of the impartial post

prompting a legal challenge from Democrats who say the vote was illegal.

State Atty. Gen. Josh Kaul, a Democrat, said in a lawsuit that Senate Republicans did not have the authority to impeach Meagan Wolfe, administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and accused them of attacking the state’s elections.

It’s the latest in a whirlwind of deep partisan divisions in Wisconsin, where Republicans who control the Legislature are also threatening to oust a newly elected Supreme Court justice before she even hears a case. They also plan to revise the state’s electoral maps before the court can throw out the current boundaries in favor of the Republican Party.

The fight over who will run the elections office stems from persistent lies about the 2020 election and is creating instability ahead of the 2024 presidential race for the more than 1,800 local clerks who run the elections.

Wolfe has been the subject of conspiracy theories and the target of threats

supporters of former President Trump

who falsely claim she was part of one

supposed

are planning to rig the 2020 elections in Wisconsin

in favor of Democrat Joe Biden.

Republican leaders cited the concerns of these conspiracy theorists in justifying Thursday’s 11/22 vote along party lines to fire her.

She said Thursday that she would not bow to political pressure and would continue to serve as administrator at least until the end of the 2024 elections, unless a court decides otherwise or the state Election Commission decides to oust her.

Today’s Senate vote to impeach me is not a referendum on the work I do, but rather a response to the failure to achieve the political outcome I want, Wolfe said. The political outcome they wanted is that someone would come into this position of their own choosing and bow to this political pressure.

Wisconsinites have expressed concerns about the conduct of the election, both here in Wisconsin and nationally,” said Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu. We need to rebuild confidence in Wisconsin elections.

But numerous reviews have found that Wisconsin’s 2020 election was fair and the results were accurate. Biden defeated Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, an outcome that withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a review of conservative law firms and multiple state and federal lawsuits.

Election observers have expressed concern that replacing Wolfe with a less experienced administrator or continuing to challenge her position ahead of the 2024 election could create greater instability in a presidential race where election workers expect to face more pressure, intimidation and threats to get.

Wisconsin Republicans are trying to illegally fire Wisconsin’s election administrator without cause. Today it appears they continue to escalate efforts to sow distrust and disinformation about our elections, denigrate our clerks, poll workers and election administrators, and undermine the basic tenets of our democracy, including the peaceful transition of power,” said Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in a statement.

At Evers’ request, Kaul sued Republican Party legislative leaders and asked a judge to rule that the Senate vote has no legal effect and that Wolfe will remain in charge of the election commission.

Meanwhile, Republicans introduced a resolution calling on the Election Commission to appoint an interim administrator to replace her.

The Senate has blatantly ignored Wisconsin law to put its stamp of approval on baseless attacks on elections, Kaul said, adding that Wolfe remains the administrator.

“I’m confident the court will confirm that,” he said.

The state’s bipartisan Board of Elections deadlocked in June on a vote to nominate Wolfe to a second four-year term. Three Republicans voted to nominate her and three Democrats abstained in hopes of avoiding a nomination that would require Senate confirmation.

Her rejection by the Senate would normally result in Wolfe’s removal, but a recent Supreme Court ruling appears to allow her to remain in office indefinitely if she is not nominated by a majority of the committee, or four members.

Senate Republicans pushed to force a vote on her in June, despite the committee’s failure to nominate her. LeMahieu said he interpreted the committee’s 3-0 vote as a unanimous nomination. The Legislature’s nonpartisan attorneys and Kaul have disputed that interpretation, saying the law is clear that an elections administrator must be nominated by at least four commissioners.

Wolfe did not attend a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on her reappointment last month, citing a letter from Kaul saying there is no doubt she will remain head of the elections office. That hearing instead became a platform for some of the most prominent members of Wisconsin’s election denial movement to repeat widely debunked claims about the 2020 election.

It’s hard to believe that we are still at a point where the now highly analyzed and debunked claims about our system still seem to be driving decisions, Wolfe said Thursday.

Many of the same skeptics were in the Senate gallery Thursday and cheered as the vote passed.

Many Republican grievances against Wolfe center on election commission decisions she implemented, which she is legally obligated to do. In addition to carrying out the commission’s decisions, Wolfe helps guide Wisconsin’s local election clerks.

Wolfe became head of the Election Commission in 2018 after Senate Republicans rejected her predecessor Michael Haas because he had worked for the Government Accountability Board. Republican lawmakers disbanded that agency, the predecessor to the Elections Commission, in 2015 after investigating the former Republican Administration’s ability to support the Elections Commission. Scott Walker’s campaign had illegally collaborated with outside groups.

Since the 2020 election, some Republicans have floated the idea of ​​abolishing or overhauling the Election Commission.

Wolfe has worked for the commission and the accountability body for more than 10 years. She also served as president of the National Assn. of state election directors and chair of the bipartisan Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which helps states maintain accurate voter rolls.