Editorial: Hovde's election claims are false. He's blaming Milwaukee – without evidence.

This editorial was updated to add new information.

Eric Hovde conceded his loss in a hard fought U.S. Senate campaign against Tammy Baldwin, but not before repeating false claims about the election process in Milwaukee without evidence to back his assertions. That leaves a stain on an otherwise strong campaign against a two-term incumbent.

More importantly, it further erodes the credibility of Republicans on a bedrock condition of democracy: free and fair elections. Namely, elections are only tainted when you lose. Similar claims have not been leveled where GOP candidates were victorious Nov. 5.

On Nov. 12, the Republican businessman said he was considering a recount in the tight race. With 99% of Wisconsin's votes counted, some 28,958 votes separate the two with Baldwin leading Hovde 49.4% to 48.5%. When the final votes are tallied and certified, if Hovde lost by 1 percentage point or less, he could have requested a recount.

In announcing he would not seek a recount and was conceding the race on Monday, Hovde continued to question the integrity of ballots in Milwaukee. He made sweeping claims that question hundreds of thousands of votes while providing no evidence of wrongdoing.

Let's be clear about one thing: Wisconsin election laws provide numerous safeguards to protect against voter fraud. If there is credible evidence that procedures have not been followed or that the law has been broken, that information should be reported to authorities. Hovde did neither.

"I have heard from numerous supporters urging me to challenge the election results. However, without a detailed review of all the ballots and their legitimacy, which will be difficult to obtain in the courts, a request for a recount would serve no purpose, because you will just be recounting the same ballots, regardless of their integrity," Hovde said in a six-minute video posted to the social media platform X.

Anyone who followed the campaign can appreciate the pain and disappointment he feels. The Associated Press, Fox News and NBC News called the race in favor of Baldwin the day after the Nov. 5 election. The Democrat delivered a victory speech on Nov. 7.

Hovde makes false claims of 2024 election irregularities

Hovde continued a pattern of disingenuous and dangerous comments that started in the Nov. 12 video where he made his first public comments since election night. He opened the video by saying he had been quiet because he believes it's better to not comment until he has the facts, but then he proceeded to present false information.

For instance, he claimed 90% of Milwaukee's absentee ballot votes went to Baldwin. In fact, the number is 82% and consistent with other margins between the two in the race in the city. If Hovde has evidence of irregularities, he should present that, not easily refutable claims.

Similarly, his statements about voting "inconsistencies" in "certain Milwaukee voting precincts" reflect thinly veiled prejudices about who should be allowed to exercise their Constitutional right to vote. Again he presented no evidence that any same day voter registrations he cites as unusually large were improper. Many people in Wisconsin stood in line on a rainy day to exercise their civic duty. Why are voters in its largest and most diverse city being singled out?

Hovde actually answers that question later in the video when he criticizes Milwaukee for delivering final results early Wednesday morning, instead of late Tuesday night. Election officials repeatedly warned that the counting of absentee ballots would slow the reporting of results due to a state law that mandates that election workers cannot start counting until 7 a.m. on Election Day. Their decision to reprocess 30,000 absentee ballots further delayed results.

This was a secret to no one. Wisconsin's senior U.S. Senator and its GOP Party chairman held a news conference outside Milwaukee's central count facility after officials announced the absentee ballots would be reprocessed and likely delay the reporting of final results for one to three hours.

Moreover, a bipartisan law to allow clerks to start counting absentee ballots the day before the election died in the Wisconsin state Senate last session. Why did Republicans in the Senate kill that bill? Apparently so that candidates like Hovde could continue to make bogus claims about Milwaukee vote drops when they fall short. Donald Trump made the same false claim when he lost in 2020. A recount confirmed that fact, but that did not stop the falsehoods from spreading. (Trump has been silent in 2024, perhaps because he won the election.)

As a result of those repeated lies, a significant portion of the public is concerned about the integrity of elections. This is not because of widespread fraud or failures in the system, but because of a pattern of false claims like the ones Hovde made in his videos. The comments on his social media posts illustrate how quickly and widely such corrosive lies spread.

Republicans who won Wisconsin races haven't made similar claims

In both videos, Hovde identified the most likely reason for his loss: third-party candidates, one with support from Democrats, who siphoned away votes that would have reasonably gone to his campaign. And across the country, notably Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada, there were similar splits at the top with voters selecting Trump and Democrats for the U.S. Senate.

Editorial: You can be confident in Wisconsin election results. We have the proof.

Election Day in Wisconsin was largely orderly and efficient. There were some hiccups, but no enterprise of that scale can be entirely error free.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board will continue to seek out facts and information about voting integrity in Wisconsin and speak out against bogus claims. Eric Hovde noted he received more votes than any other Wisconsin Republican, with the exception of Trump, on Nov. 5.

He could have ended this chapter on a proud note, but instead veered into conspiracy theories and false claims. In doing so, he became part of the problem of distrust in the the democratic system and love of country that propelled him to seek the office in the first place.

Editorials are a product of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board, which operates independently from the news department. Email: [email protected]. Why we write editorials. Meet the editorial board.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Editorial: Hovde has right to recount WI Senate race, not spread lies