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Wisconsin Election ‘Loophole’ Could Allow 142,000 To Vote This Fall Without An ID
The Federalist ^ | 09/09/2024 | M.D. Kittle

Posted on 09/09/2024 7:24:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

That’s six times the election margin between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in 2020.

Election Integrity deniers often complain that Wisconsin has one of the more stringent voter ID laws in the country. That’s a good thing; the swing state Badger State has proved to be a cesspool of election integrity concerns in recent years.  

But there’s a voter ID-related loophole cheaters can drive a semi truckload of fraud through. In Wisconsin, voters may claim “Indefinitely Confined” status, which allows them to receive an absentee ballot without presenting proof that they are who they claim to be. A new report, “Wisconsin’s Voter ID Loophole: The Continuing Problem of Indefinitely Confined Voters,” examines the election integrity pitfalls of the lax law.

“This raises a legitimate question about the potential for fraud” in November’s election, the report’s author, Will Flanders, research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, told me in a recent interview.

‘Skip the Step’

Indefinitely confined status, perhaps not surprisingly, exploded in the 2020 election amid the Covid panic. Under Wisconsin law, the elderly, individuals with a physical illness or infirmity, or those disabled for “an indefinite period” may sign a statement allowing them to receive an automatic absentee ballot for every election. It’s an honor system provision, with no verification and no investigation required. Applicants simply decide whether they fit the indefinitely confined requirements to receive an absentee ballot — without having to show a photo ID.

In 2020, just as Covid was hitting and Democrat Gov. Tony Evers was locking down the state, election officials in Wisconsin’s two largest counties — Milwaukee and Dane counties — issued nearly identical “guidance” to voters. 

“I have informed Dane County Municipal Clerks that during this emergency and based on the Governors [sic] Stay at Home order I am declaring all Dane County voters may indicate as needed that they are indefinitely confined due to illness,” Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell wrote on a March 25, 2020 Facebook post. “This declaration will make it easier for Dane County voters to participate in this election by mail in these difficult times. I urge all voters who request a ballot and have trouble presenting a valid ID to indicate that they are indefinitely confined.” 

The post has since been removed. 

“A voter can select a box that reads ‘I certify that I am indefinitely confined due to age, illness, infirmity or disability and request ballots be sent to me for every election until I am no longer confined or fail to return a ballot.’ The voter is then able to skip the step of uploading an ID in order to receive a ballot for the April 7 election,” the clerk added.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court quickly ruled by December 2020— lightning fast in judicial timelines — that the clerks erred. Voters couldn’t get out of showing a photo ID simply because of the potential risk of being infected by a virus. But the court did decide that the law leaves the question of indefinite confinement up to the voter.

“In Wisconsin, you only need to show a photo ID when you vote—not when you register,” the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty report notes. “Indefinitely confined status merely requires checking a box when registering to vote online.”

Former Wisconsin Democrat lawmakers Patty Schachtner, who served as a state senator, and Shelia Stubbs, a state representative from Madison, checked the box. They also campaigned and attended political events while they claimed to be indefinitely confined voters, Milwaukee conservative talk show host Dan O’Donnell first reported in 2020.

“A review of Stubbs’ Facebook page shows that she has attended political and campaign events as well as services at her family’s church in Madison throughout the year, thereby indicating that she was at no point confined to her home for an indefinite period of time,” he wrote in a story on the NewsTalk 1130 WISN website. “So unconcerned was she about risks to her physical health during the ongoing pandemic that she even posed for a picture on August 17th with fellow Democratic state representatives, none of whom were wearing masks.”

Covid Drives Explosion in ‘Indefinitely Confined’

The lockdowns may be long over, but Wisconsin’s indefinitely confined claims remain significantly higher than pre-Covid numbers. According to the report, indefinitely confined status still is up 116 percent since 2016. As of late July, 144,347 voters remained on the list, WILL reports.

Covid, used as a cover for myriad manipulations and abuses of election law, fueled a quadrupling of voters using indefinitely confined status, from some 66,000 claims in 2016 to nearly 266,000 in 2020, Flanders reported. 

“While no solid evidence of fraudulent votes cast by such voters has been brought forward to date, the prospect of so many individuals voting without having to show a photo ID was one of the more credible accusations of election problems in Wisconsin raised post-2020,” the report states. 

Tens of thousands of individuals should not be on the list, according to the indefinitely confined statute. Local election clerks are supposed to remove voters if they vote in person or do not vote in any election. In other words, use it or lose it. Voters who want their indefinitely confined status reinstated must fill out a form and return it to their clerk’s office.

“We counted the number of voters in that situation using WEC data, as well as open records requests to examine whether clerks were following the law,” Flanders stated in the report. 

WILL’s investigation found nearly 25,000 individuals on the list had not voted in Wisconsin’s spring election (relatively few do). Another 2,788 have not voted in any election since 2020, and nearly 2,600 individuals on the list voted in person in the spring election.

15 Cities

Wisconsin’s biggest and deepest blue cities — Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay Kenosha, and Janesville — have the largest number of voters declaring that they are indefinitely confined, the report shows. All but Janesville were part of the notorious “Wisconsin-5,” the five largest Badger State cities that received the lion’s share of the “Zuckbucks” election administration grants in 2020.

WILL’s investigation did find that Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Kenosha have complied with the removal requirement. Madison elections officials have not fulfilled the law firm’s request for information, Flanders said, while Janesville and the city of Peshtigo were the only two Wisconsin cities to have failed to respond at all to WILL’s requests. 

The law firm sent records requests to 15 Wisconsin municipalities: the five cities with the largest number of voters in indefinitely confined status and nine randomly selected communities. Of those that responded, the city of Lake Geneva, a southeastern Wisconsin resort community of about 8,500 residents, failed to send out letters to 27 voters who should no longer be on the indefinitely confined list.

“Our office has routinely complied with the Indefinitely Confined maintenance requirements. Due to turnover in the City Clerk position, our office was not able to send the Indefinitely Confined Notice Letters before the August 14, 2024, Partisan Primary Absentee Ballots were required to be mailed out,” a city official explained in an email to WILL, according to the report. 

‘Seeds of Doubt’

As the report and a previous study note, states such as Connecticut, Louisiana, and Nevada require some proof of medical condition prior to a voter being able to be added to the indefinitely confined database — to vote without a photo ID.

Republican lawmakers have introduced several bills that aim to clean up the language in the law. Assembly Bill 494 would have required voters seeking the status to apply using a Wisconsin Elections Commission form.

Applicants, too, would have to submit proof of identification with the application, and municipal clerks would have to affirm in writing that the proof was provided. And “the existence of an outbreak or epidemic of a communicable disease in a voter’s community does not qualify the voter as indefinitely confined.”

As he has done with so many other election reforms, the leftist governor vetoed AB 494. 

“I am vetoing this bill in its entirety because I object to the manner by which it targets certain voters and ongoing efforts by the Legislature to make it more difficult for eligible voters to vote,” Evers wrote in his Dec. 6 veto message. It does no such thing, proponents of the election integrity measure assert. It makes it more difficult for ineligible voters to cheat, they say. 

Flanders said failing to fix the indefinitely confined loophole “does nothing to improve election confidence,” particularly in a state plagued by irregularities and election law violations in a 2020 election in which Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden claimed victory over Republican President Donald Trump by fewer than 21,000 votes.

“The potential 142,000 voters using indefinitely confined status in the 2024 election will doubtless be used to sow seeds of doubt about the outcome of the upcoming election, and responsible politicians on both sides of aisle should work to fix this glaring issue in the future,” the report asserts. 


Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: absentee; ballot; cheating; election; fraud; id; rigging; wisconsin
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1 posted on 09/09/2024 7:24:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Just like in Arizona.

Arizonan as are big fair elections and election integrity.

On the surface, Arizona has one of the most secure election systems. Unfortunately Adrian Fontes and Katie Hobbs have manufactured some “loop holes” to game the system that are big enough to drive a truck though and vote fraud has become endemic in Arizona

2 posted on 09/09/2024 7:31:42 AM PDT by rdcbn1
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To: SeekAndFind

3 posted on 09/09/2024 7:31:57 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Until an few understand the seriousness of this, nothing will change.


4 posted on 09/09/2024 7:42:00 AM PDT by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: GOPJ; poconopundit; Jane Long; Diana in Wisconsin; Grampa Dave; Godzilla; Vaduz; null and void; ...

p


5 posted on 09/09/2024 7:51:19 AM PDT by Liz (Faith is believing what you cannot see; its reward is to see what you believe. St Augustine)
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To: rdcbn1

The Democrat base is the cemetery vote.


6 posted on 09/09/2024 7:55:38 AM PDT by cnsmom
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To: cnsmom

And the illegal aliens 👽.


7 posted on 09/09/2024 7:59:59 AM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: SeekAndFind
Merrick Garland issues press release on prosecuting election crimes. DOJ via Citizens Free Press ^ | 1/9/2024 | Merrick Garland

The Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section enforces the civil provisions of a wide range of federal statutes that protect the right to vote including: the Voting Rights Act; the National Voter Registration Act; the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act; the Help America Vote Act; and the Civil Rights Acts. Among other things, collectively, these laws:

- prohibit election practices that have either a discriminatory purpose or a discriminatory result on account of race, color, or language minority status;
- prohibit intimidation of voters;
- allow voters who need assistance in voting because of disability or inability to read or write to receive assistance from a person of their choice (other than agents of their employer or union);
- require minority language election materials and assistance in certain jurisdictions;
- require accessible voting systems for voters with disabilities;
- require that provisional ballots be offered to voters who assert they are registered and eligible to vote in the jurisdiction, but whose names do not appear on poll books;
- require states to provide for absentee voting for uniformed service members serving away from home, their family members also away from home due to that service, and U.S. citizens living abroad; and require covered states to offer the opportunity to register to vote through offices that provide driver licenses, public assistance, and disability services, as well as through the mail, and to take steps regarding maintaining voter registration lists.


8 posted on 09/09/2024 8:12:19 AM PDT by linMcHlp
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To: bk1000

There should already be a list, publicly available, of the 142,000 voters in question. All it takes is a photo or two of each one out and about in the community to make them ripe for a very public prosecution.

EC


9 posted on 09/09/2024 8:12:26 AM PDT by Ex-Con777
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To: Liz
But there’s a voter ID-related loophole cheaters can drive a semi truckload of fraud through. In Wisconsin, voters may claim “Indefinitely Confined” status, which allows them to receive an absentee ballot without presenting proof that they are who they claim to be.

Isn't this the state that idiot Paul Ryan is from? Figures. Thank for the ping Liz.

10 posted on 09/09/2024 8:14:25 AM PDT by GOPJ (Trump was NOT Hitler last time AND he won't be a dictator this time. Democrats & press boys lie.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Y’all need to go back to working for M$. It is a feature, not a bug.


11 posted on 09/09/2024 8:16:06 AM PDT by bobbo666
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To: SeekAndFind

Probably the illegal alien African colonists they’ve got living there.


12 posted on 09/09/2024 8:42:18 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Liberals are FOS. The greatest threat to "democracy" is freeloader "immigration". Stupid morons.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Wisconsin has no shame just like the other blue states.


13 posted on 09/09/2024 9:02:10 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; AZ .44 MAG; Baynative; bgill; bitt; ...

P


14 posted on 09/09/2024 9:55:56 AM PDT by bitt (<img src=' 'width=30%>)
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To: SeekAndFind

As always, the hysteria needs to be tempered by details.
1) Everyone who “can” won’t request a ballot. (say 70% “do”)
2) Everyone who “does request” won’t send it in. (say only 70% do)
3) Everyone who sends it in doesn’t vote D. (say only 70% do)
4) Challenges remove another slice (say, 20%)

You’re already back under the estimated number Trump will win WI by in Seth Keshel’s most pessimistic scenario, of over 40,000. In his optimistic scenario, Trump wins by 120,000 votes.


15 posted on 09/09/2024 10:04:38 AM PDT by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually." Jimi Hendrix)
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To: GOPJ; Liz

SMU was banned from football in 1987 because they wouldn’t stop cheating. I guess US elections are less important.


16 posted on 09/09/2024 10:44:53 AM PDT by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas (Re-imagine the media!)
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To: Vaduz

If WI is a blue state...

...then why does Deep State have to steal its elections? 🤔


17 posted on 09/09/2024 10:48:44 AM PDT by mewzilla (Never give up; never surrender!The fans )
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To: mewzilla

Purple, with honest elections.


18 posted on 09/09/2024 10:57:35 AM PDT by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas (Re-imagine the media!)
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To: ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas

I’ll make you a bet.

After we restore the republic, I’m thinking we will discover that what we have in fact are 50 MAGA red states...

Governed by 50 blue legislatures.


19 posted on 09/09/2024 11:01:27 AM PDT by mewzilla (Never give up; never surrender!The fans )
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a “loophole”

#ing Rats!


20 posted on 09/09/2024 11:10:26 AM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist! )
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