Wisconsin Senate votes to remove state's top elections official, setting off legal dispute

The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Senate voted Thursday to fire the state’s top elections administrator, Meagan Wolfe – a move that immediately triggered a legal battle over who will oversee voting in one of the nation’s most important presidential swing states as the 2024 election approaches.

The 22-11 vote to remove Wolfe follows years of criticism by supporters of Donald Trump, who have blamed Wisconsin’s voting policies during the coronavirus pandemic for the former president’s 21,000-vote loss in 2020.

Wolfe is likely to stay on as the administrator of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission despite Thursday’s vote, after Wolfe and many Democrats, including Attorney General Josh Kaul, said the actions of the Senate – where an April special election victory gave Republicans a supermajority – were not legitimate.