Dane County was the second and final county to finish its recount, reporting a 45-vote gain for Trump.

Trump had called the lawsuit filed by Texas against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin “the big one.”

Nothing in the emails suggests there were problems with the election that contributed in any meaningful way to Trump’s 20,682-vote loss to Joe Biden.

“Despite concerns with statewide elections procedures, this audit showed us that the election was largely safe and secure,” Sen. Rob Cowles said Friday.

The grants were provided to every Wisconsin municipality that asked for them, and in the amounts they asked for. 

“Application of the U.S. Department of Justice guidance among the clerks in Wisconsin is not uniform,” the memo says.

“To put it simply, we did not break the law,” the chair of the Elections Commission said.

The memo states that state law gives the Audit Bureau complete access to all records during an audit investigation and federal law and guidance does not prohibit an election official from handing over election records.

Drop boxes were used throughout Wisconsin, including in areas where Trump won the vast majority of counties.

Thousands of ballot certifications examined from Madison are a window onto how elections officials handled a pandemic and a divided and unhelpful state government.

In its first few years the Wisconsin Elections Commission split 3-3 on official decisions only twice, but from December 2019 through the end of 2020 it recorded 32 split votes.

“I don’t think that you instill confidence in a process by kind of blindly assuming there’s nothing to see here,” WILL president and general counsel Rick Esenberg said.