Molly Beck
MADISON - Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers says he has not been made aware of any "widespread" Federal Bureau of Investigation effort to probe the 2020 presidential election in this battleground state but has measures in place to respond if one materializes.
Evers made the comments days after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported FBI agents had questioned a top state election official and have sought interviews with people who helped administer Milwaukee's 2020 election.
It's so far unclear what the goals are of the questions.
A spokeswoman for the FBI has repeatedly declined to answer questions about the probe's scope and purpose. But sources told the Journal Sentinel the FBI's interview with Wisconsin Elections Commission deputy administrator Robert Kehoe focused on how elections work in Wisconsin and debunking conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in the state.
"No, I'm not," Evers told WISN 12 News political reporter Matt Smith when asked if Evers was aware of "widespread FBI activity here in the state."
"I haven't heard it, but we are adequately prepared and I won't tell you what pieces are in place but we're prepared to make sure that our elections happen safely," Evers said about November's elections.
"We have plans to, if they show up, we will be there to make sure that they are asking for what they have access to but also making sure that they're not doing what they shouldn't do," he said.
The Wisconsin probe comes after federal officials in January seized hundreds of boxes of ballots related to the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, and after the FBI issued a grand jury subpoena in March for voting information in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin have all been central to Trump's false claims that he won the 2020 election. Trump has insisted, without evidence, that former President Joe Biden didn’t win in Wisconsin that year.
A recount in two Wisconsin counties that Trump's campaign paid for, court rulings, a state audit and a conservative review have confirmed that Trump lost. Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes.
Officials in Wisconsin – and especially Milwaukee – have been bracing for an investigation.
If federal officials advance an investigation of the 2020 election in Milwaukee, it's possible that poll books and nearly 180,000 absentee ballots with attached ID numbers could be turned over to investigators. Since state law requires absentee ballots counted at a central counting facility to include poll list numbers, the data could be matched with poll book information to identify voters.
Ballots from the 2020 election typically would have been destroyed by now. But Milwaukee's 2020 ballots still exist, partly because of a lawsuit filed against the city by a New London man who has sued state and local election officials over the 2020 election and related issues.
Sources told the Journal Sentinel earlier this month no ballots have been seized by the FBI.
Agents sought to question one of Milwaukee County's top election officials about the 2020 presidential election at her home last week. Evers said the agents' decision to visit her home was "bizarre."
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
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