Wisconsin business leaders show support for state, local election officials

Wisconsin’s Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe is receiving support from business leaders across the state as Republican-led investigations into the 2020 election continue.

In a pair of letters released Monday morning, members of the Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy Coalition thanked Wolfe and more than 1,800 local election officials for their work in the 2020 elections.

The letters come as former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman continues to lead a GOP-backed investigation of the 2020 presidential election. Wolfe has rebuffed calls from Republicans to resign her post.

Details about Republican efforts to contest the election have continued to emerge. Last week, a released memo from November 2020 outlined plans for “alternate” electors in Wisconsin to cast electoral votes for former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, even if the ticket was behind in the results.

Weyco Group Chairman and CEO Tom Florsheim, a signatory on the letters, said the push to make election administration partisan is dangerous.

“As the attacks on the WEC ramped up, you know, we just felt that as business people, we couldn’t sit on the sidelines and watch this happen without saying something,” Florsheim said.

Florsheim said instability in elections is bad for business.

“If you have all of these false, and really pretty awful things that are being said about our election officials, it just casts a cloud over our state,” Florsheim said. “If after every election there’s this kind of chaos and turmoil that we’re seeing this time, we won’t have the stability that we need to be successful as businesses in this state.”

Other signatories to the letters include Milwaukee Bucks and Fiserv Forum President Peter Feigin, former Harley-Davidson Inc. CEO and President Matthew Levatich, and former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel President and publisher Elizabeth Brenner.

Florsheim said it was key for the group to be bipartisan in nature.

“When you look at how polarized this whole country is, and we have it in our state as well, unless you have people from both parties trying to send a message that this is no way to treat our election commission, it’s not going to really resonate,” Florsheim said. “We’re just hoping to get more people behind this effort to make it clear to the legislature and also just raise awareness in the public that our democracy in Wisconsin is being threatened.”

Florsheim said the group sees the fight as a long-term effort.

“We recognize election administrators nationwide are facing increasing unwarranted threats and harassment,” the group’s letter to Wolfe and elections commision staff reads. “As an election official, your work is the glue that bonds our processes and upholds our democracy. … You continue to ensure the voices of voters are heard through an impartial process that allows for accessible and fair elections.”

In a press release, David Lubar, president and CEO of the investment firm Lubar & Co., said a successful business environment depends in part on a “fully-functioning democracy.”

“The bottom line is strong democratic processes, in Wisconsin and nationwide, underpin the economic success of our businesses,” Lubar said.

Last month, a Dane County judge decided a subpoena issued to Wolfe in the Gableman probe could move forward.

The Republican-backed election investigation comes after Wisconsin completed a series of routine state election audits and a presidential recount in the state’s two largest counties, as well as an audit from the Legislature’s nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau. None of those reviews have uncovered widespread fraud or wrongdoing in the administration of the 2020 election in Wisconsin. There have also been numerous Republican-backed lawsuits in the state, all of which have failed to result in findings of wrongdoing by election officials or voters.

President Joe Biden won Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes — a margin similar to several other razor-thin statewide elections in recent years.