Republican Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) member Robert Spindell, who was one of the fake Trump electors in the MAGA scheme to overturn the 2020 election, now appears poised to become the chair of the six-member board after a fellow GOP commissioner abruptly resigned on Wednesday.
The departing Republican commissioner, Dean Knudson, announced his resignation during a meeting with the declaration that “I cannot be effective in my role representing Republicans on the commission,” per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The WEC is tasked with administering elections in the state, and has become a target of those who falsely claim Donald Trump won the 2020 election.
Knudson, who has pushed back against the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, said it was “clear” to him that there was a “deep desire” among Wisconsin GOP leaders that he not be the chair of the WEC.
“Two of my core values are to practice service above self and to display personal integrity. And to me, that integrity demands acknowledging the truth even when the truth is painful,” the Republican commissioner said. “In this case, the painful truth is that President Trump lost the election in 2020 — lost the election in Wisconsin in 2020. And the loss was not due to election fraud.”
Knudson stated that he was staying on the commission until Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) chooses his replacement. Vos has played ball with his fellow party members’ crusade to legitimize ex-President Donald Trump’s attacks on the 2020 election, including by starting an investigation into the results and keeping that investigation funded long past its initial end-date.
Knudson’s upcoming departure leaves Spindell as the only eligible candidate to become WEC chair, a role which will oversee the 2024 elections.
The chair position switches between the three Republicans and three Democrats on the commission every two years. The current chair is a Democrat.
On Wednesday, the commission voted 5-1 to push back its election of the next chair to June, with Spindell being the one “no” vote.
Spindell was one of the 10 Wisconsin Republicans who participated in Trump’s plot to replace Joe Biden’s electors in key swing states, with Republicans including Spindell presenting themselves as Trump electors in order to steal the election.
Democratic presidential electors in Wisconsin are now suing the WEC commissioner and the other nine Wisconsin Republicans who were involved the scheme.
Meanwhile, Spindell continues to push Trump’s fake narrative about the 2020 election and has expressed support for the sham election audit that is being run by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman.
Gableman has put forth extreme and legally impossible “proposals” during his review, including the idea of “decertifying” Biden’s win in Wisconsin.
He’s also proposed that the WEC be dissolved, an idea backed by Republican lawmakers who claim the commission played a role in the non-existent “rigging” of the 2020 election.
Ironically, it was Republican lawmakers who created the bipartisan WEC in the first place in 2015 after dissolving the nonpartisan Government Accountability Board.
While Spindell indicated in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier this week that he doesn’t necessarily support dissolving the WEC, he claimed Gableman’s review was important because Republicans “feel” that something was wrong with the 2020 election.
“And so whether there was fraud or not, that’s really irrelevant,” the elections commissioner argued.
