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 December 10, 2020

 

 

Tune in tomorrow (Friday) at 10:00 AM to watch the first joint public hearing of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections and the Senate Committee on Elections, Ethics and Rural Issues.  The committees have been exercising their statutory powers to investigate how the November 3rd general election was conducted.

 

The proceedings will be streamed live over the Internet via WisconsinEye and will also be archived there for future viewing.  The committee chairpersons are expected to deliver a preliminary update on the members' findings over the past several weeks, and testimony will also be received from a number of invited speakers.

 

There are at least two good reasons why this investigative work is worthwhile even though the Legislature does not ordinarily have any role in determining the winner of an election.  First is the possibility that crimes such as intentional voter fraud or significant rules violations occurred that affected the election's outcome.  I don't expect that our investigation is likely to identify a large number of criminal acts, but I could be surprised; that is what investigations are for.  If we learn that some local or state authorities are not vigorously executing the procedures that the Legislature writes, or if we learn that widespread misconduct is defeating even the vigorous execution of our procedures, we absolutely want to discover this; make it known; hold people accountable as appropriate; and ideally generate consensus on ways to write the rules more wisely.

 

Second is the fact (whether or not we discover significant violations) that a large number of people in our state, and from across our entire country, are more uncertain today than they were 60 days ago whether our state's election procedures have been sufficient to ensure that their voices and votes mattered.  For America's sake, I hope that our investigation helps turn this trend around.  When it eventually concludes, come what may, I hope that Democrats and Republicans alike will have greater confidence, not less confidence, that their voices are heard and are not vulnerable to being canceled out by anyone's mischief.

 

One thing that is special about America is that, as we state in the first few phrases of our nation's Constitution, the government that our people establish is entrusted with the duty to make our Union "more perfect," "establish justice" and "insure domestic tranquility."  As long as you entrust me with this duty, I promise that I'll keep at it.

 

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Office of Representative Terry Katsma
State Capitol, Room 306 East
P.O. Box 8952
Madison, WI 53708

(608) 266-0656
Rep.Katsma@legis.wisconsin.gov |