Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers joined Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and City of Milwaukee Mayor Cavlier Johnosn in attacking the Trump Administration after it was revealed that FBI agents have been talking with various election officials in what may be a preliminary probe into the city’s administration of the 2020 presidential election.
But while they are calling it an attempt at intimidation and political persecution, it is actually a perfectly lawful and justified exercise in Department of Justice oversight of federal elections.
52 U.S. Code § 20701 requires election officers to retain and preserve records and papers relating to voter registration, applications and other acts requisite to voting for 22 months after a federal election. 52 U.S.C. § 20703 authorizes the Attorney General to demand in writing that such records “be made available for inspection, reproduction, and copying.”
This explicitly requires the cooperation of state and local officials with the federal government, who have broad latitude in ensuring local officials upheld all applicable law in the way they handled voting. The statutes were codified as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and the clear legislative intent behind them was to allow for federal oversight, investigation, and legal action into racially segregated states and communities that interfered with any citizens’ right to vote.
This doesn’t just happen when Dixiecrat Democrats enact poll taxes or close voting booths to black voters; it also happens when fraud taints the results of elections. 52 U.S.C. § 20511 criminalizes “knowingly and willfully depriv[ing], defraud[ing]…the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process” through “the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known…to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent.”
This does not need to be outcome-determinative fraud—meaning that there were enough votes to actually change the results of an election—any fraudulent vote may and must be investigated. Simply put, a fraudulent vote cancels out a real one, thus depriving the person who cast it of their right of participation in democracy.
Democrats like Evers, Crowley, and Johnson love to claim that they are great defenders of democracy, but they always seem to oppose the actual defense of democracy. Ensuring that votes were properly cast and elections were administered lawfully is a core tenet of the defense of democracy, and the Department of Justice (here represented by the FBI) is the entity tasked with doing so.
Guidelines from the U.S. Attorney allow for the FBI to conduct a preliminary investigation based on any information that indicates possible criminality, and while Democrats have suppressed it for years, there is ample evidence that Milwaukee election officials did not comply with state and federal law in how they administered the 2020 election.
Milwaukee (and four other Democrat-run cities) unlawfully accepted grant money from non-profit groups such as the National Vote at Home Institute and the Center for Tech and Civic Life that required them to be allowed to assist in and, in some cases effectively take over election administration. This is unlawful. The City of Milwaukee provided these groups with unfettered access to voter data and other materials not provided to any other group. This is also unlawful. Emails indicate that the Milwaukee Election Commission was relying on these groups to at least assist in running some aspects of the 2020 election. This is also unlawful.
Did it rise to the level of criminal activity? Neither the Democrat-controlled Milwaukee Police Department, Sheriff’s Department, or County District Attorney’s Office nor the Democrat-controlled Wisconsin Department of Justice ever even considered looking into the possibility.
And the FBI isn’t necessarily doing so, either. It is apparently conducting a preliminary investigation by talking with people associated with the administration of the election to determine if there is evidence that fraudulent votes were cast or election officials broke the law. If there is enough evidence, an investigation will begin. That’s all.
Why are Evers, Crowley, and Johnson so opposed to this? Are they afraid that all these years later there might be some proof that the 2020 election wasn’t the safest, most secure in history after all? There may be, there may not be—that’s what investigations are for. And before them come preliminary investigations. Lawful, authorized, and justified preliminary investigations…or if you will, preliminary defenses of democracy.
