Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said this week that he wants to see a statewide investigation into the 2020 election wrap up this month.
Vos ordered an investigation last year to determine if there were any instances of voter fraud that led to unlawfully altering the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin in favor of current president Joe Biden.
The investigation is being conducted by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, and formal findings have not been released.
Angela Joyce, a spokeswoman for Vos, said that the speaker hoped Gableman will provide findings and recommendations by the end of January or the beginning of February in order for new voting legislation to be passed during the current legislative session.
However, legal issues could get in the way of this timeline. Attorney General Josh Kaul recently filed a lawsuit against Gableman for subpoenas he issued to Wisconsin Elections Commissioner administrator Meagan Wolfe. The investigator issued the subpoena in an attempt to order all election-related records from the commission. A decision on Kaul's lawsuit is expected next week.
Wisconsin is a critical state for the broader Republican push to reinvigorate accusations of election fraud during the 2020 election. Biden had won in the state by just under 21,000 votes.
WisPolitics.com first reported that Vos and Gableman had agreed to verbally extend Gableman's contract that ended on Dec. 31. Joyce told The Associated Press that nothing had been "formally written," but Vos had asked for the recommendations.
The original contract called for paying Gableman and his team $676,000 in taxpayer funds to complete the investigation. Vos had said it might take more money to finish it, but he did not respond to messages Thursday about whether Gableman will be paid more.
Meanwhile, Gableman filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the mayors of Madison and Green Bay to sit for closed-door interviews or be jailed for noncompliance. Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich filed a complaint asking the judge to sanction Gableman for alleged misstatements about the mayor's response to the subpoena.
A hearing on that case is set for Jan. 21.
Vos and his office's attorney are scheduled to sit for depositions on Wednesday in yet another lawsuit filed by the liberal watchdog group American Oversight related to its numerous open records requests. Vos has turned over some of the requested documents related to the election probe, but a judge this week said attorneys could ask Vos for details about what he searched for and whether all documents requested were provided.
Another hearing in that case is set for Jan. 24.
An Associated Press review of votes cast in battleground states contested by Trump, including Wisconsin, found too few cases of fraud to affect the outcome. Some of those cases involved registered Republicans and people who said they supported Trump.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
