Assembly Speaker Robin Voss says we should stop obsessing about Wisconsin Elections Commission
Administrator Megan Wolf.
That's even, as fellow Republicans in the legislature, continue to ramp up calls to impeach
her.
The Elections Commission chair, Republican Don Millis, is calling allegations against
her a pack of lies.
And he's angry.
Newspapers and TV stations are making revenue, often advertisement, showcasing those lies.
Don Millis joins us now.
Thanks very much for being here.
Pleasure.
So, let's hear a few seconds of that ad.
It's from the election denier who ran against Robin Voss.
I am very worried about the fairness and security of our elections if Megan Wolf remains
in charge of them.
So the ad highlights what it says was her approval of illegal drop boxes, ballot harvesting,
and so-called zucker bucks.
Mr. Millis, why do you call these allegations out as demonstrably false?
Well, with respect to the first two items, it wasn't her choice.
The election commission, unanimous bipartisan vote, approved of the unstaffed drop boxes.
And also, to the extent that ballot harvesting was permitted under that, it was part of the
same thing.
Administrator Wolf was just carrying out those plans.
With respect to the so-called zucker bucks, there is nothing that state government could
do because the courts have since determined that the local governments accepting those
funds were perfectly legal.
There was a lawsuit of the commission prior to being on the commission voted to dismiss
that complaint, and that was confirmed.
We know that because the legislature is now trying to amend the Constitution to prohibit
the use of such private funds, and I think there's some merit to that.
But blaming Administrator Wolf makes no sense because it wasn't her call.
So when you first saw this, add, what was your reaction?
Well, I was surprised.
I mean, I'm not a journalist, I do have a journalism degree, and when I was in journalism school
a long time ago, newspapers like the Milwaukee Journal, it was called The Journal then, were
a pair of guns of virtue.
They would never have accepted ads like this.
And we've since seen that the media, when we have election deniers and when President
Trump has made statements that the media believes our lies, they will run chirons under
his speeches and all that.
So it seems to be very hypocritical that the media would accept money, and certainly in
the case of the journal Sentinel, run ads that they know are false because a month before
they ran the ad, they ran, they had an article that pointed out that the allegations contained
in that ad were false.
So meanwhile, the saga of trying to impeach Meghan Wolf rolls on and ramps up.
Do you want her to leave her post?
I think at this point, we're getting on the eve of very important and it's going to be
a very contested election.
I think that Speaker Voss has a right that this is not the time to be debating these issues.
We have so many more important issues.
The thing that's frustrating to me is on Tuesday, the assembly had, I think, a very good day.
They voted on a number of things that would appeal to the base, that would appeal to independence
and the headlines were about impeaching Meghan Wolf when there's just no chance that that's
going to happen because I don't think there are enough votes in either house to accomplish
that.
And so it seems to me it's a fool's errand to go down that road because it simply are
not the votes to do that, in my opinion.
Would you replace her if we're not a fool's errand?
Well, you know, I think we have to think about, well, let's put those in.
Politics is the art of the puzzle.
I know that there are four votes on the commission that to keep her.
And so the only thing that commission could do right now based on the court decisions
is that the commission could vote to remove her, but you need four votes to do that.
There are no, there are not four votes to do that.
It doesn't make sense to do that.
And it doesn't make sense to change an administrator and go searching for a new administrator when
in 362 days or 361 days, we're going to have an election that's going to be pretty hotly
contested in Wisconsin.
And if that vote were to come to pass on the commission, would you vote?
Would you vote to replace her?
I wouldn't vote to replace her right now because I don't think it makes sense to do so.
But you might in the future?
Well, you know, I've had discussions with the administrator wolf about a variety of things.
I think she's generally doing a good job.
I think it's, I think the things that she has done are the things that have been said about
her are totally false.
But I'm not going to predict how things are going in the future.
A lot of this has to do with, you know, personal decisions that she has to make in the future
of the staff.
And how do we build in a successor?
You know, I think it is important that in any agency like this that you have a plan for
succession.
You know, I've had some private conversations with her about that.
I'm not going to explore.
I'm not going to divulge those, but right now it makes no sense to talk about replacing
her.
Very briefly.
How do you feel about Donald Trump reportedly pressuring Robin Voss to impeach Meghan
Wolf?
Well, you know, again, I think that people are misled.
If you if you really think that Meghan Wolf was the reason why Donald Trump lost Wisconsin,
then that's just that's just that's just false.
That's not that's not the reason why he didn't prevail here.
It had nothing to do with her.
And so I don't understand that.
I think my guess is that he's trying to appeal to a base so that he can continue to be in
the news.
Down Millis, thanks very much.
Thank you.
Good luck with all this.
Okay.
Yeah.
We'll see how it goes.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you.
Another day in Wisconsin.
Thank you.
Yeah.
See you later.
Yeah.
Bye bye.