Trump's recitation of false claims during the CNN town hall included a big one about Milwaukee voting in 2020
MADISON - No, "so many illegal votes" were not cast in Wisconsin.
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday repeated a number of false election claims he invented in 2020 in an effort to retain power despite losing reelection to current President Joe Biden.
In a nationally televised town hall event hosted and aired by CNN, Trump again lied about Wisconsin's 2020 election — claiming voters in Milwaukee cast "so many illegal votes, they didn't know what to do with them."
Key to Trump's baseless argument is Wisconsin, where voters delivered Biden a victory by about 21,000 votes after electing Trump by a similar margin just four years earlier.
More: Miniscule level of Wisconsin felon voter fraud in 2020 found to be on par with previous elections
Trump has sought to undermine the 2020 outcome in Wisconsin by pushing factually deficient conspiracy theories and claims about the presidential contest despite its outcome being confirmed by recounts he paid for, court rulings, a nonpartisan state audit and a study by a prominent conservative group.
Trump has also used a July Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling declaring ballot drop boxes illegal to light a fire under his campaign to persuade voters to believe he did not lose his reelection bid two years ago. Ballot drop boxes have been used in Wisconsin for years, especially during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic. They have been most prevalent in the state's largest cities, including Milwaukee.
To Trump, whose election loss was cemented when he lost Wisconsin, the ruling by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court means the thousands of ballots deposited into the drop boxes should be invalid and therefore state lawmakers should reverse the election outcome.
It's an argument for the legally impossible but Trump continues to press it as he launches another campaign for president with the ear of a sizable portion of Wisconsin's electorate.
Rick Esenberg, president and chief counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, the group that brought the drop box lawsuit, said interpretations of the ruling as having a retroactive effect on ballots cast in drop boxes are incorrect.
"The case was prospective only," Esenberg told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in July. "It declared that drop boxes are not permitted under Wisconsin law. Now, if some municipality would go ahead and use boxes anyway in a manner that's not permitted by the court, then somebody would be able to challenge that and they might be able to get those ballots drawn down. But there's no retroactive impact."
Trump's legal team raised a variety of questions before the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the aftermath of the 2020 election but did not raise objections to ballot drop boxes. On other claims the court ruled Trump waited too long to raise objections that could have been brought before the election.
The U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol also has released testimony showing Trump sought to overturn the election result, including through lawsuits in Wisconsin, while knowing the effort was baseless.
Milwaukee will be the scene of the first Republican presidential debate this August and in 2024 will host the Republican National Convention.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson tweeted Thursday, "Voting in Wisconsin, including in Milwaukee, is safe, secure, and reliable. We’d love to count absentee votes faster, but that’s up to the Legislature. Anyone who says different just ain’t being straight with you."
Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed he would have won re-election in 2020 if it weren't for middle-of-the-night "ballot dumps" in Milwaukee.
He refers to Milwaukee's practice of reporting absentee ballot totals all at once, which often comes late on Election Night during presidential elections because the state Legislature has not passed a law allowing municipalities to count absentee ballots before Election Day.
Molly Beck can be reached at [email protected].
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Trump's false claim about Milwaukee voting made during CNN's town hall
