Arizona Republican Kari Lake and other Trump supporters this week pushed a false story claiming that Wisconsin voted to withdraw its Electoral College votes for President Joe Biden, BuzzFeed News reports.
Lake, who was endorsed by Trump in the Arizona gubernatorial election, and others spread a false story from the conspiracy theory clearinghouse Gateway Pundit claiming that Wisconsin took back their electors.
The story, which has since been updated, initially claimed that the state assembly voted “unanimously” to withdraw its 10 electors.
“HUGE BREAKING NEWS,” tweeted Lake, who is a former TV journalist. Lake shared the false story and declared that “Arizona should be next!”
Though the original story has been updated to say that the measure did not actually pass, it still falsely claims there was a voice vote. Lake’s tweet is still up as well.
None of this happened:
None of what the Gateway Pundit claims happen, not could it happen.
Republican state Rep. Tim Ramthun, an election conspiracist, brought up his bill to withdraw the state’s electors as a privileged resolution, meaning the Assembly had to respond to it.
But the Assembly did not vote on the bill, instead referring it to the Rules Committee where the legislation will die.
“Not only is it illegal, it’s just plain unconstitutional,” tweeted Republican Rep. Jim Steineke. “As chair of the Rules Committee, there is ZERO chance I will advance this illegal resolution. #EndofStory.”
What happened?
Democratic state Rep. Mark Spreitzer told BuzzFeed that Ramthun tried a second attempt to force a vote on the bill but that failed as well. Members then returned to discussing a bill they were previously working on, which passed unanimously by voice vote.
“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.”
