Agents in Wisconsin have been following up on debunked conspiracy theories as part of their queries, after pursuing 2020 ballots in other swing states.
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MADISON, Wis. — The FBI in recent weeks has interviewed current and former election officials about the 2020 election in Milwaukee, ramping up wide-ranging reviews of voting in the swing states that President Donald Trump lost that year.
Election officials are cautiously watching the developments in Milwaukee to see if agents try to seize ballots, as they did in January in Fulton County, Georgia. The confiscation of tens of thousands of absentee ballots from Wisconsin’s largest city would set off alarms because Milwaukee maintains its absentee ballots in a way that could allow agents to determine who voters selected — undermining the secrecy of their ballots.
In addition to taking 2020 ballots in Georgia, the FBI has obtained images of 2020 ballots and other election data from Maricopa County, Arizona. The Justice Department has also sought 2024 ballots for Wayne County, Michigan, but has not gotten them.
In Wisconsin, FBI agents recently showed up at the homes of former election officials in Milwaukee, according to two people familiar with their activities who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The visits came after agents spoke to the state’s deputy elections director, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This week, agents were planning to interview police officers who escorted the election official responsible for delivering the city’s 2020 results to a Milwaukee County election office, according to WISN-TV.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump has long alleged the 2020 election was stolen from him. But recounts, court decisions and independent reviews have repeatedly shown that Joe Biden was properly declared the winner. Trump sought to overturn the results in the weeks after the election, remained fixated on the 2020 election in the years he was out of power and has pushed for overhauling election procedures after returning to the White House, where he still repeats the false claims he was the rightful winner.
Trump and his allies have infused the administration with officials who have long questioned the 2020 results and amplified election conspiracy theories. FBI Director Kash Patel dodged saying in his confirmation hearing that Trump lost in 2020. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard took the unusual step of showing up for the FBI’s seizure of ballots in Georgia. And last year, Trump named Kurt Olsen, a former campaign attorney who tried to overturn the 2020 results, to a White House position monitoring election integrity.
The FBI has not sought Milwaukee’s ballots so far, but officials fear agents may because of their actions elsewhere. They have said they worry especially about the dangers of voters losing the secrecy of their ballots.
Ordinarily, election officials by now would have destroyed ballots from an election that was held nearly six years ago. But Milwaukee County officials have hung on to the 2020 ballots because of litigation.
Milwaukee and some other Wisconsin communities are required under state law to add numbers to absentee ballots that can be traced to individual voters. That means that someone who has the ballots and ballot logbooks could discern which candidates each absentee voter selected.
Election officials in the state closely guard the ballots and redact numbers from them when they release copies to the public. They wouldn’t have the ability to do that if the ballots were seized by the FBI.
“Our secret ballot is secret for a reason,” said Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the state’s bipartisan elections commission. “It’s sacrosanct. It is at the heart of our American democracy. And those people who demand to know how everyone voted are violating those core tenets of what it means to vote as an American.”
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If the ballots and logbooks get into the hands of the FBI, the information could leak to the public, said Kevin Kennedy, who served for years as Wisconsin’s nonpartisan chief election official.
“You’re going to see things like, ‘Here are the Biden voters in your neighborhood,’” he said. “The bottom line is the potential for mischief is there, and we have seen in this age of social media that it will happen.”
In their recent interviews, agents from Milwaukee’s field office have asked former election officials about a flash drive with results that was briefly forgotten in a voting tabulator and a bizarre claim about a secret room in an election office, according to two people familiar with the interviews.
The tabulation of absentee ballots in Milwaukee in 2020 was completed around 3 a.m., seven hours after the polls closed. The city’s election director at the time, Claire Woodall, then gathered about a dozen flash drives from the ballot tabulators and was escorted by police to a county office where they could be added to the other results.
When she got to the county office, Woodall realized she had forgotten one flash drive in a vote tabulator. Another election worker then provided the flash drive to a police officer so it could be taken to the county office, she said at the time. The flash drive was never unattended, and election observers from both parties were able to watch how the situation was handled.
The incident was widely reported at the time and quickly became the subject of election conspiracy theories. Milwaukee’s results were confirmed in a recount, litigation and a review by a conservative legal organization.
FBI agents asked about the forgotten flash drive in recent interviews, according to two people familiar with them. It was not clear if they have interviewed or attempted to interview Woodall, who did not provide a comment for this story.
A year after the election, another far-fetched theory emerged when a man filed a public records lawsuit against Milwaukee that alleged an unnamed man from Illinois printed ballots for Biden in a back room of an election office. The lawsuit included a hand-drawn floor plan of the office that included a note marked “Hidden Room. Someone was sleeping? Snoring?”
The records lawsuit was filed by Peter Bernegger, who was convicted of mail fraud and bank fraud in 2009 and in recent years has become a vocal critic of how elections are conducted in Wisconsin. A judge dismissed his public records lawsuit. Bernegger did not respond to a request for comment.
FBI agents asked former officials about whether there was a secret room in the election office and whether anyone printed ballots in the office, according to two people familiar with the interviews.
The FBI this month interviewed at least two former election officials, according to people familiar with the interviews, and also spoke with Robert Kehoe, the deputy administrator of Wisconsin’s elections commission, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Also this month, the FBI stopped by the home of Michelle Hawley, the director of Milwaukee’s elections commission, according to Milwaukee County Clerk George Christenson. The FBI planned to interview police officers who worked on election night, according to WISN-TV and the Journal Sentinel.
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