Wisconsin elections agency wants money to bolster confidence

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s bipartisan elections agency, which has been under fire from Republicans since Donald Trump’s loss in 2020, voted unanimously Wednesday to ask the GOP-controlled Legislature to create a new division designed to increase confidence in election results in the face of ongoing conspiracy theories and false claims of widespread fraud.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission approved the proposal at its Wednesday meeting to seek $1.3 million to hire 10 people and create an Elections Inspector General office.

“This office would not be about dwelling in the past or giving credence to claims that threaten the credibility of Wisconsin’s accurate and secure elections," said Meagan Wolfe, the commission's administrator and top elections official in Wisconsin.

The commission has been at the heart of many complaints lodged by Trump, Republican lawmakers and others related to guidance it gave local election officials for the 2020 election. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that absentee ballot drop boxes are illegal even though the commission issued guidance allowing them, and there are ongoing legal fights over who can legally return an absentee ballot and whether election clerks can fill in missing information on envelopes that contain absentee ballots.

President Joe Biden defeated Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, an outcome that has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm's review and numerous state and federal lawsuits. Even a Republican-ordered review that drew bipartisan criticism did not turn up evidence of wrongdoing that would change the outcome of the election before the investigator was fired.

However, Republicans have continued to push for changes in how elections are administered in Wisconsin. In...