Republican lawmakers are prepared to spend up to $680,000 on their ongoing review of the November presidential election and will issue subpoenas in the next week or two, according to former Wisconsin and national Republican Party chair Reince Priebus.
Also on Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said he believes a “cyber-forensic audit” is necessary as part of the Legislature’s review of the 2020 election and that discussions have focused on additional hiring to aid in the probe.
“Assembly Republicans have been working with (former Wisconsin Supreme Court) Justice (Michael) Gableman to conduct a swift, complete and thorough investigation,” Vos said in a statement. “Part of our discussion has been focused on hiring independent contractors to enhance our efforts. We believe a cyber-forensic audit is necessary to ensure issues did not happen in 2020. We have allocated additional resources to Justice Gableman to ensure this investigation gets to the truth.”
Vos didn’t provide any clarity on what he meant by a “cyber-forensic audit,” nor did he confirm the cost of the audit.
Such an election review could take a similar tone to the widely criticized Arizona election review, launched by Arizona Senate Republicans in April to review Maricopa County ballots in an effort to find irregularities that could support former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. The ballots there had already been counted and audited twice.