The same Democrat who led the Wisconsin Elections Commission during the contentious 2020 presidential election will be back at the helm in the swing state this year after being unanimously elected by the bipartisan panel on Monday.
Ann Jacobs was the only committee member nominated to serve as chair, reprising the role she held from 2020 to 2022. The unanimous vote included that of a Republican commissioner. who tried to cast Wisconsin’s electoral votes for Donald Trump in 2020, even though he lost the state.
The six-member commission administers and enforces Wisconsin election laws, but elections are run locally by more than 1,800 clerks in towns, villages, cities and counties. State law requires the commission chairman to alternate between a Republican and a Democrat every two years.
Jacobs said in a post on to make our strongest election. ever.”
In her role as chairman, Jacobs will approve the post-election campaign and certify the results, including the upcoming presidential elections. The chair also sets the committee’s agenda and influences how questions are phrased, an important power in a panel split between the two parties.
The certification is normally a perfunctory ministerial function performed by the chairman after the local and provincial commissions have certified the results at the local level. Following the 2022 midterm elections, then-Republican Chairman Don Millis certified the statewide results within minutes.
However, in 2020, Trump’s Republican supporters tried to delay the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. Republicans that year called on Jacobs to resign after she certified the results, even as lawsuits against Trump challenging the election were pending.
One of the election board members who voted for Jacobs to become chairman was Republican Bob Spindell. He is one of 10 Republicans who tried to cast Wisconsin’s electoral votes for Trump in 2020.
Spindell and the other fake voters said, as part of the settlement of a civil lawsuit, that their actions were “part of an effort to improperly overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
Spindell has rejected calls from Democrats to resign from the committee over his role as a fake voter. He made no comment about Jacobs before voting in favor of her for chairman.
Two lawyers and a Trump aide were charged in Wisconsin last week with crimes related to their work on the fake voter program. None of the voters were charged, but Attorney General Josh Kaul said the investigation remains open.
While Jacobs will chair the commission, Meagan Wolfe, the nonpartisan elections office administrator, is Wisconsin’s chief election official.
Both Wolfe and the committee have been targets of false claims of election fraud and other improprieties since the 2020 election that Biden won against Trump. Some Republican lawmakers have pushed for Wolfe’s impeachment but have been unsuccessful.
