Only 1.2% of Wisconsin’s Republican legislators publicly acknowledge the 2020 election results as legitimate

There are 82 Republicans serving in the Wisconsin State Legislature. Only one of them is making a case that Donald Trump fairly lost the state in the 2020 election, The New York Times reported Saturday.

“No election is perfect. But there is not evidence of intentional malfeasance. No evidence that the election in 2020 was inaccurate,” retiring State Sen. Kathy Bernier (R-Chippewa Falls) said at an event last December.

Wisconsin Eye played the clip of her December speech during an interview on its “Newsmakers” show on Monday.

Bernier told host Lisa Pugh that in her experience, “folks that are adamant there was massive voter fraud” aren’t willing to come into conversations with an open mind.

“When I’ve tried to explain how you cannot stuff ballots into a ballot box, it would be noticed, various other aspects of the election system and process, I meet [sic] with ‘I don’t believe you,’” Bernier said.

During the interview, she called on state representative and gubernatorial candidate Timothy Ramthun (R-Campbellsport), whom she said she will be meeting with about the electoral process, “to really search out the truth.”

Ramthun was disciplined by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos last month after accusing Vos of signing a deal with attorneys for former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to authorize ballot drop boxes, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Ramthun has been among the most outspoken critics of the 2020 elections in Wisconsin, even calling for Wisconsin to revoke the votes of the state’s 10 electors.

Bernier, who chairs the State Senate Elections Committee, asked the legislature’s attorneys to look into the issue of decertifying the election in November, NYT reported. The answer: it is not possible.

The home page of Ramthun’s campaign website declares, “I will call for an independent full forensic physical cyber audit for the November 2022 election, beginning with my race regardless of the outcome. It is time we restore confidence in our elections process.”

“Election integrity” is the top issue on the website’s “platform priorities” page.

Asked by Pugh if she thought Ramthun’s position on election processes was dangerous, Bernier said he was “misguided at this point. Whether it’s dangerous or not, is up to the electors. … That’s our democracy. That’s the way we carry out government.”

Follow Zach on Twitter @zcheartlandsig