Republicans in important swing-state Wisconsin are now concerned about whether the repair will be worse than what had formerly been bad for Milwaukee’s election integrity as a controversial election chief was sent packing.  ,
Only six weeks before the November presidential poll, Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall was announced on Monday by Mayor Cavalier Johnson.  , Woodall, roundly criticized by conservatives for her handling ( or mishandling ) of the closely contested 2020 presidential election in battleground Wisconsin, will be replaced by her lieutenant, Paulina Gutierrez, according to the far- left Democrat mayor.  ,
Why?Â
Woodall’s resignation, according to Johnson spokesman Jeff Fleming, was based solely on her management of elections, according to Fleming’s Associated Press.” There were other issues internal to the election commission office and to city authorities that raised concerns. What those “issues” are, Fleming did n’t say.  ,
In an email response to The Federalist’s questions, Fleming said the governor, clean off a election win, is administratively required to appoint nearly two hundred top administration officials.  ,
” In three occasions, he named someone who was not an incumbent”, the president’s mouth said.  ,
Fleming claimed Woodall had written a job description for a group referral place almost a year ago, but she turned down the offer the following week.  ,
Woodall was out of the company Tuesday on holiday, according to a payment staff. Gutierrez, who has served as Woodall’s lieutenant for over a year, was said to be in a meeting Tuesday evening and did not return The Federalist’s request for comment.  ,
Checkered Story
State Sen. Dan Knodl, a Milwaukee- place Republican who chairs the Senate’s elections commission, said Woodall’s leave was surprising.  ,
” I did n’t see it coming or know there was any change in the winds”, he told The Federalist. ” Claire has had some checkered history” . ,
Really. In the same way that the Milwaukee election administrator collaborated closely with a number of leftist “voter rights” activists for the 2020 election through Center for Tech and Civic Life’s ( CTCL ) Covid response grants. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, handed out some$ 400 million ostensibly for” safe elections”, with the lion’s share of the” Zuckbucks” targeting Democrat- heavy cities in swing states such as Wisconsin. In fact, the” Wisconsin- 5″ places — Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine — signed deals with the kept- aircraft CTCL and received almost 86 percent of the$ 10 million- plus in grant money.  ,  ,
According to records obtained by Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway, CTCL emailed Woodall, who at the time identified as Claire Woodall-Vogg, to request” an experienced votes staffer that could possibly embed with your employees in Milwaukee in a matter of time” after the deal was dried up.
” An out-of-state Democratic activist named Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein was the staffer who led Wisconsin’s portion of the National Vote at Home Institute. As soon as he met with Woodall- Vogg, he asked for contacts at the Wisconsin Elections Commission and in the other cities”, Hemingway wrote in Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, her 2021 book on the left’s myriad acts of election interference in 2020.  ,
Spitzer-Rubenstein had worked for the Democratic Party for a while in New York, parachuting into Green Bay, where he embedded in the city clerk’s office. According to emails, he was given access to the room where Green Bay’s absentee ballots were kept. He also had offered to” cure”, or correct, absentee ballot envelopes.  ,
As Hemingway reported, Spitzer- Rubenstein told Green Bay officials that his organization, the National Vote at Home Institute, had helped cure ballots for other cities in Wisconsin.
We’ve developed a process map with Milwaukee to help with their process, they said. We can also modify the letter that we’re sending out with absentee ballots and a call script to alert voters. ( We can also get people to make the calls, too, so you do n’t need to worry about it. In an email to Green Bay election officials, the activist explained.  ,
” Flair for Drama”
As The Federalist has reported, in the wee hours of Nov. 4, 2020, long after the polls had closed in the Nov. 3 presidential election, Woodall announced a batch of tens of thousands of votes had finally been counted. In crucial swing-state Wisconsin, Democrat Joe Biden received the vast majority of the votes, handing him a razor-sharp victory over Republican President Donald Trump.  ,
” Damn, Claire, you have a flair for drama, delivering just the margin needed at 3: 00 a. m .” , , wrote Ryan Chew of the left- leaning Elections Group in an email to the city elections chief. ” I bet you had those votes counted at midnight, and just wanted to keep the world waiting”!
About ten minutes later, Woodall made fun of Chew in an email.  ,
” I just wanted to let you know that I had been awake for a full 24 hours”! the elections director in Milwaukee wrote.  ,
Woodall claimed to have read Chew’s email as a joker when Milwaukee’s total results were released. She claimed she was “kind of uncomfortable” with Chew’s choice of words and should n’t have responded.  ,
Dean Knudson, former member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, was n’t comfortable with Woodall’s” joking” in an election in which Biden would claim victory by about 20, 000 votes.  ,
Knudson, who was speaking for the Journal Sentinel at the time, said,” I do believe she was joking, but laughing about this displays an extraordinary level of insensitivity and callous disregard for the damage caused by actions taken in Milwaukee that night.”  ,
When Woodall “briefly misplaced a flash drive containing vote counts on Election Night,” she “did n’t help her case.” The data collection device was later delivered by a police officer. Woodall claimed that the flash drive was “never left unattended” and that the staff had remained in the room throughout the process, according to Wisconsin Watch, a left-leaning publication.
Woodall, who could n’t resist launching a shot at then-President Donald Trump, was quoted in another article lauding Milwaukee’s troubled elections chief’s moral fortitude and electoral integrity. Wisconsin’s handling of the 2020 election was n’t as impeachable to the Republican and millions of her fellow Americans as Woodall and her friends in the media did.  ,
“( It’s been ) extremely partisan and divided”, she told Wisconsin Watch. ” The fact that people are supporting someone trying to overturn the actual results is disappointing” . ,
Meet the New Boss… ,
Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who served as president of the Milwaukee Common Council at the time, joined a long line of Democrats praising Woodall’s performance during the 2020 election, describing it as” stellar”.
Johnson’s opinion of Woodall appears to have changed since then, but his spokesman claims that the mayor had no issues with her work’s integrity or quality.  ,
The Mayor believes Ms. Gutierrez to be the best choice for this position, according to the mayor.  , He has made it clear,  , the department will have the resources it needs to fulfill its duties”, Fleming said.  ,
Johnson stated to an ABC News affiliate in Milwaukee that Gutierrez” will lead the office at a crucial time when the public will be very critical of the department’s work.”
The mayor continued,” I have confidence in her, and I will make sure the department has the resources it needs to fulfill its duties.”  ,
Will Gutierrez, however, be more hostile to integrity in elections than Woodall was criticized for? Will she be more reliant than her former boss on partisan “nonpartisan” groups and massaging election laws? Wisconsin conservatives are worried, and rightly so.  ,
In a massive get-out-the-vote campaign, Johnson and his staff colluded with Democrats, according to Empower Wisconsin, a month before the 2022 election. As much was displayed in text messages.  ,
The communications, obtained by State Rep. Janel Brandtjen ( R- Menomonee Falls ) showed longtime Democrat Party operative , Sachin Chheda , telling Johnson and his staff what to say about the Wisconsin Votes 2022 get- out- the- vote campaign. The effort was funded by a , left- wing activist group  , with close ties to the , Center for Tech and Civic Life.
Perhaps Woodall was n’t cooperating as well with the leftist candidates attempting to win another election for Biden and fellow Dems.  ,
Bob Spindell, one of three Republicans on the six- member Wisconsin Elections Commission, said controversy has long surrounded Woodall, who is named in several election integrity complaints.  ,
” She’s tried to ease some of the complaints of some of the Republicans”, Spindell, marked as an “election denier” by Democrats and corporate media for questioning the handling of the 2020 election in places like Milwaukee and Madison, told me. ” She has been under the gun for a lot of things” . ,
Before she became the leader, things were rough for Woodall. After her long-time retirement, then-Mayor Tom Barrett appointed Woodall to the position of executive director in late June 2020. Due to widespread Black Lives Matter riots across the country, the Common Council pushed back on her appointment.  ,
According to the Journal Sentinel, the delay occurred about four months before the election, and Milwaukee was expected to play a “key role” in whether President Donald Trump is elected. Wisconsin’s biggest city faced “being , left with , no one running its , elections agency” . ,
Four years later, Woodall is out, and the same spotlight is on Milwaukee in the sequel to the 2020 election.  ,
Johnson needs to explain something, according to Knodl. Is he relieved that Woodall has vanished?  ,
He claimed that the motivation of the mayor and the newcomer depended. ” On one hand, I’d say yes. She handled the Milwaukee elections department with suspicion. On the other hand, who knows what the mayor’s motivations are” . ,
The Federalist’s senior elections correspondent, Matt Kittle, is. An award- winning investigative reporter and 30- year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
