A right-wing publication has released a report perpetuating falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election and ecstatic Trump supporters are buying into the story. However, there's just one problem: the claim in the report never actually happened.
According to Buzzfeed, The Gateway Pundit's story, which was published on Tuesday, January 25, claimed the Wisconsin State Assembly had voted unanimously "to withdraw the state’s 10 electors" that President Joe Biden received following the election.
The report pointed to a bill sponsored by Rep. Timothy Ramthun (R-Wisc.), a right-wing lawmaker who has publicly supported former President Donald Trump's claims of election fraud. On Tuesday, Ramthun presented his bill "as a privileged resolution" that the Assembly will respond to. However, the bill was passed on to the Rules Committee and Rep. Jim Steineke (R-Wisc.) has made it clear the bill will go no further.
Shortly after Ramthun's attempt to present the bill, Steineke confirmed the bill would fall flat. “Not only is it illegal, it’s just plain unconstitutional,” he tweeted. “As chair of the Rules Committee, there is ZERO chance I will advance this illegal resolution. #EndofStory.”
Speaking to Buzzfeed, Rep. Mark Spreitzer (D-Wisc.) revealed Ramthun attempted to try another procedural tactic to obtain a vote on his bill after it was forwarded to the Rules Committee, but that effort also produced no results.
“I think the Ramthun supporters who were watching sort of missed the part where his resolution was already long gone and we were back onto the bill at hand. And they heard everybody say ‘Aye,’ and they're like, ‘Wow, we just passed the resolution,’” Spreitzer said. “But, no, we passed a totally unrelated bill that we started debating before Ramthun did all of this.”
Spreitzer pointed out while Republicans criticize Rahmthun's bill, they've also spent a substantial amount of money in support of election audits. In addition to conducting their own audit, they tapped a former justice whose beliefs align with theirs.
“They don't actually believe that the election was stolen, or that there was widespread fraud, and that's of course why they aren't going to support Ramthun. ... But they're absolutely fueling the very people who are behind Ramthun’s effort by their refusal to just come out and say, ‘We had a free and fair election. Joe Biden won. There was no widespread fraud.’ So they’re trying to have it both ways,” he said.
Spreitzer also noted that Ramthun's backers "think he did something pretty heroic."
“For those of us who understood what was going on, it was sort of a fairly pathetic gesture,” Spreitzer said, “but I think he managed to pull the wool over the eyes of his fan club, and they think that he really accomplished something.”
Although The Gateway Pundit's report has been updated, Buzzfeed notes that it still does not point out that there was never a unanimous vote for state electors to be withdrawn. Instead, there is a footnote at the bottom of the report that reads, “This post has been updated as we gathered more information from our many sources.”