American Oversight Launches Investigation into Wisconsin, Arizona Officials Repeating Trump Campaign’s Voter Fraud Allegations
None of these officials, nor the Trump campaign or the RNC, have provided any evidence to support these claims.
American Oversight this week launched an investigation into actions by state legislators in Wisconsin and Arizona to promote the Trump campaign’s baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud.
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Wisconsin State Rep. and Elections Committee Chair Ron Tusler, and Arizona State Rep. Kelly Townsend have called for investigations in their respective states into the Trump campaign’s and the Republican National Committee’s claims of large-scale voting irregularities. None of these officials, nor the Trump campaign or the RNC, have provided any evidence to support these claims.
American Oversight submitted requests to Vos’, Tusler’s, and Townsend’s offices, seeking the legislators’ communications with the Trump campaign, the White House, Trump lawyers, Senate Republicans, and voting-restriction groups including the Public Interest Legal Foundation.
This investigation is a part of American Oversight’s State Accountability Project, our effort to shed light on threats to democracy at the state level. We recently filed lawsuits against the secretary of state of Georgia and the attorney general of Kentucky to compel the release of records related to those states’ voter fraud task forces, newly launched groups with the potential to undermine public confidence in elections. In Georgia, American Oversight’s legal actions resulted in the release of thousands of pages of records related to the state’s voter fraud task force, election preparedness, and communications with political campaigns and proponents of voting restrictions.
“It’s an insult to the poll workers, election administrators, and voters of Wisconsin and Arizona to groundlessly suggest that the election was ‘stolen,’” said Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight. “These politicians are promoting dangerous rumors and acting directly on behalf of the Trump campaign to cast doubt on the outcome of the democratic process. This is a coordinated attack on America’s fair and free elections.”
Links to requests filed as part of this investigation are available below:
- Vos’ communications with election authorities;
- Vos’ communications with external entities;
- Tusler’s communications with election authorities;
- Tusler’s communications with external entities; and
- Townsend’s communications with the Trump campaign, the RNC, and outside groups.