Post Five

Rep. Fitzgerald says Congress shouldn't play role in certifying elections despite his 2020 objections

Lawrence Andrea

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Published 5:07 a.m. CT December 15, 2023 | Updated 2:55 p.m. CT January 15, 2024

WASHINGTON – Wisconsin Republican Rep. Scott Fitzgerald this week suggested members of Congress should have no role in affirming presidential election results despite his own votes to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in two swing states.

 Fitzgerald, who along with Rep. Tom Tiffany objected to the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he “absolutely” stands behind his objections. But he said he thinks it is "ridiculous" he was asked to vote on the validity of electors from other states on Jan. 6, 2021, the same day supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the confirmation of Biden's victory.

 "The idea that three days after I was sworn into Congress I was asking (sic) to vote to certify Arizona’s election is just ridiculous," Fitzgerald said, without acknowledging that Republican objections to the state’s results are what led to such a vote. "I don’t know anything about Arizona’s election law. I don’t follow it.”

 Fitzgerald’s comments came in response to a Journal Sentinel question about whether he still backed his objections from two years ago. Last week, 10 Republicans who posed as fake electors for Trump in Wisconsin acknowledged Biden won the state and admitted their actions were used as part of an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

 “Absolutely,” Fitzgerald responded to the question, before explaining that he was unfamiliar with Arizona election law. “The point is, I think that whole process is ridiculous.”

 Each state, he said, “should certify their own elections, and they should submit those, and that should be that.”

 “There’s no reason for members of Congress to be certifying an election in another state that they have no knowledge of,” he added. “That’s been my beef with that since Day 1. The whole certification process.”

 But Fitzgerald’s remarks misconstrue that process, according to former University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon, whose research focused in part on election administration.

 “He has it exactly backwards,” Canon said. “They don’t vote individually to certify the results in all 50 states.”

 When a joint session of Congress meets to affirm presidential election results, the vice president opens the certified elector packets from each state, and each state’s results are announced individually. If no objections are lodged, those results are simply accepted.

 “Only because you had an objection did you actually then have to vote on Pennsylvania and Arizona,” Canon said of the 2020 election, when Republicans challenged the results in those states. “By voting to not uphold what had been certified at the state level, he’s doing exactly what he said people shouldn’t be doing, which is weighing in on the certification of a state election result from a state they know nothing about.”

 When it was pointed out that he objected to the results in Arizona, Fitzgerald responded: “Yeah because like I said, I had no knowledge or understanding of — and had members from Arizona saying that they thought that there were things that were done in that state that weren’t aligned with their own election laws.”

 The remarks also come as Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, continues to spread false claims about fraud in the 2020 election — including claiming that he won Wisconsin, where recounts and court rulings reaffirmed Biden’s more than 20,000-vote victory. Trump’s lies leave open the possibility he could make similar claims if he loses in 2024.

 Wisconsin 7th Congressional District Representative Tom Tiffany addresses supporters on Thursday, September 24, 2020, at Midwest Manufacturing in Eau Claire, Wis. Vice President Mike Pence toured the facility and addressed supporters as part of a "Made in America" event stressing the importance of the American manufacturing industry.

This week, however, both Fitzgerald and Tiffany pointed to changes made to Wisconsin’s election administration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as reasons they were skeptical of the 2020 election results. (Both men said they would have objected to Wisconsin’s results had they come up for a vote.)

 Tiffany, for his part, alleged some people voted absentee by saying they were indefinitely confined during the pandemic when they should not have. And he took issue with voters using absentee ballot drop boxes — a practice the Wisconsin Supreme Court later outlawed in July 2022 in a ruling that has been challenged by Democrats.

 Tiffany told the Journal Sentinel he would be open to objecting to presidential results in the future if he thinks “there are serious improprieties.” Fitzgerald declined to weigh in.

 “There were all kinds of corners cut in Wisconsin as a result of COVID,” Fitzgerald said. “You can say that throws the election into a place where it was completely not legit, or you could say, well no that’s just stuff that was overlooked as a result of COVID.”

 An election challenge similar to that seen after 2020, however, is unlikely next year.

 Congress late last year passed the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, a bipartisan piece of legislation updating the Electoral Count Act of 1887 with the aim of preventing another Jan. 6.

 The new law, among other provisions, raises the threshold for members to lodge objections to the validity of a state’s electors to at least one-fifth of the House of Representatives and the Senate — up from just one member of the House and Senate.

 It also ensures only one slate of electors from each state is sent to Washington by empowering a state official, like the governor, to sign off on a slate of electors. The measure also establishes a legal process for candidates to contest results.

 Canon, the former professor, said these changes make a repeat of 2020 “far less likely” and noted Congress must retain its ability to deal with disputes over elections. 

 “It’s not tenable to say that Congress should play no role,” Canon said. “But Congress needs to play a very limited, prescribed role. And that, I think, is done pretty well now in this amended law.”