GOP-led Wisconsin Senate votes to remove chief elections official
The Republican-led Wisconsin Senate on Thursday voted to remove the state’s chief election official ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
In a 22-11 vote along party lines, Republicans voted to remove Meagan Wolfe, a nonpartisan administrator of the battleground state’s elections commission.
Republicans had been calling for Wolfe to resign over how she conducted the 2020 presidential election in that state that was won by President Joe Biden. In June, the bipartisan elections commission, comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans, hit a deadlock over reappointing Wolfe for a second four-year term.
Wolfe has defended how she handled the presidential contest and has spoken out against election fraud falsehoods that have frequently been promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies in the state.
In a statement Thursday, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, called on the state’s Justice Department to provide “immediate representation” aimed at keeping Wolfe in the role.
Taking aim at Republicans, who obtained a supermajority in the Senate earlier this year through a special election, Evers called the removal effort an “attempt to illegally fire Wisconsin’s elections administrator without cause.”
He also praised Wolfe as a “consummate, qualified professional who’s worked in voter registration and outreach and election security for more than a decade.”
Wolfe was appointed to the role of chief elections official by the state’s bipartisan, six-member commission in 2018. She was unanimously confirmed by the state Senate in May 2019 for a four-year term.
NBC News has reached out to Meagan Wolfe for comment.