Bruce Murphy
Back in the News

We Couldn’t Find Any Voter Fraud

Ex legislator Dale Schultz exposes Republican scam on voter fraud.

By - Jul 5th, 2017 12:40 pm
Dale Schultz

Dale Schultz

In a revealing interview with Pro Publica, former Republican state senator Dale Schultz, who served in the legislator for more than 30 years, offers a frank look at the false claims of voter fraud used by his GOP colleagues to justify restrictions that have suppressed voting in Wisconsin.

Schultz admits he initially favored this law as well as the redistricting formula that a federal court recently overturned as unconstitutional gerrymandering. “Well, the blunt truth is, as a partisan politician, your knee-jerk reaction is to protect the standing of your party because that solidifies your power to accomplish what you want to do,” he told Pro Publica reporter Topher Sanders.

Beyond that, Schultz says, was the deference you were expected to show to GOP leaders. “You need to understand, I come from the old school of the ‘Institution of the Senate,’” Schultz explains. “When I was coming up through the ranks, and even when I was majority leader, I put great stock and respect into the chairmanship system… So when the chair of the Senate elections committee says there’s a problem with voter fraud in the state, and the committee passes a bill out, you take them at their word.”

But Schultz soon came to realize the GOP claims of voter fraud were patently false. “Did anyone ever show you compelling evidence” of voter fraud? Sanders asks.

“No, in fact, quite the opposite,” Schultz says. “Some of the most conservative people in our caucus actually took the time to involve themselves in election-watching and came back and told other caucus members that, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see it.’”

So Schultz ordered his staff to launch an investigation “and come up with three concrete examples of voter fraud in Wisconsin,” he recalls. “Well, guess what? They couldn’t do it, and you need to understand the time, I had graduates from the University of Wisconsin journalism school on staff who’d worked for national publications.”

Ultimately, his staff could only find two examples. “One was a Republican legislative staffer who’d voted in the Madison area as well as back in her hometown in the same election,” Schultz notes. “The other was the estranged wife of a Republican. That’s it, and both examples were on the Republican side.”

So Schultz confronted his fellow members of the GOP caucus. “I asked my colleagues to show me three specific examples [of voter fraud], and all I got was a bunch of hand-wringing and drama-filled speeches about the ‘buses of Democrats being brought up from Chicago.’ I said, ‘Show me where that was ever prosecuted or even charges brought.’ It was crickets. Nobody could give me an answer, and that was both an eye-opening and sad moment for me because I think it finally hit me that time-honored tradition of the ‘Institution of the Senate’ was all but dead.”

Even so, Schultz decided to go along with his caucus. “People were very emotional,” he notes, “but you know when it comes to casting votes… once the decision is made, the team pretty much sticks together.”

But he soon regretted voting for the law, which added various restrictions making it harder for people to vote.

“I went out and did my regular scheduled district office hours,” Schultz recounts. “It took all of my first stop to realize I didn’t do my homework. I had town and village clerks coming up to me saying, ‘Dale, are you nuts? Do you realize how restricting voting hours and early voting and absentee voting is going to affect how people can vote let alone making our jobs all the harder?’ They also made it clear that there was no voter fraud happening that they were aware of. Because of the feedback from my constituents, I voted no on the subsequent bills.”

Todd Allbaugh, who served for years as chief of staff for Schultz, testified in federal court that State Sen. Mary Lazich urged her fellow Republican senators to enact a voter ID requirement in a closed-door meeting in 2011 because of its impact in the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and the state’s college campuses, as the Wisconsin State Journal reported. Allbaugh also testified that Republican Congressman Glenn Grothman, then a state senator, said in the same meeting that he supported voter ID because it would help Republicans win elections. Grothman later predicted to the media that photo ID would help the GOP win the next presidential election, which turned out to be an accurate forecast.

As Allbaugh wrote in the Madison weekly Isthmus, describing the closed-door Senate Republican Caucus, “a handful of the GOP Senators were giddy about the ramifications and literally singled out the prospects of suppressing minority and college voters.”

Republicans were later challenged in federal court to prove voter fraud was a problem, but couldn’t. Republican Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen did a huge brief on the subject but as Federal District Judge Lynn Adelman concluded, “The defendants could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring in Wisconsin at any time in the recent past. If it is occurring… the defendants should have been able to produce evidence that it is.”

Schultz told Pro Publica the voting restrictions undoubtedly had an impact on the presidential election: “Oh, yeah, all of these things have an impact. Even just constantly keeping up a steady drumbeat of claims about election fraud has an impact. It motivates a base. How big an impact probably varies from state to state. In very close elections, even seemingly small impacts can have great consequences.”

74 thoughts on “Back in the News: We Couldn’t Find Any Voter Fraud”

  1. Dave K says:

    “Schultz decided to go along with his caucus. “People were very emotional,” he notes, “but you know when it comes to casting votes… once the decision is made, the team pretty much sticks together.””

    Didn’t anyone get the point of the Nuremberg trials? “I was just following orders” doesn’t cut it.

  2. Jason Troll says:

    California in 2012…… 7.8 5 million voted for the Romney/ Obama match. California 2016 Trump v. Clinton. 14.6 million voted. Californians nearly doubled their vote total in four years. Suspicious ??

  3. Tom D says:

    Jason, what are you talking about????

    Here is the 2012 California popular vote:

    Obama 7.85 million
    Romney 4.84 million
    2-candidate total 12.69 million

    And the 2016 numbers:

    Clinton 8.75 million
    Trump 4.48 million
    2-candidate total 13.23 million

    Not anywhere near your claim (that the number of votes nearly doubled)!

    (All numbers from Wikipedia.)

  4. Frank Henry says:

    “32 Full Voting Rights” should be the goal for all politicians and political parties.

  5. Eric S says:

    @Jason…uh, Obama alone received 7.85 million votes in California in 2012, with about 4.8 million for Romney. Total votes cast were around 13 million.

  6. Jason Troll says:

    Eric, now looking back your right. There goes that point. Touche.

  7. Vincent Hanna says:

    The troll was wrong. Shocking. In other news it is Thursday.

  8. MKE kid says:

    Troll: “you’re”

  9. Rnprn says:

    You can’t give up your moral compass to your party. Sorry doesn’t absolve you Dale.

  10. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    There is tons of fraud in Wisconsin, always has been. Police Report showed that. Convictions are few cause Chsiholm will not investigate.
    Friends in democrat party over the decades have bragged about it.
    In Chicago axelrod gives people lists in their district and tells theme everyone must be voted.
    In Milwaukee chief fraud is in group homes, dead people, aliens, moved, college duplicate voting and operatives that come in from Red and blue states to work in Wisconsin, register ,then vote early and leave. Wanguard race.
    it is easy to check but no one has. see how many felons, dead people, moved, college kids, operatives on roles, at election time and you have some idea.
    Dems are scared of the Pence study cause it will show the fraud. Dems only care about stopping voter id cause it will stop the fraud.

  11. Thanks for exposing your cronies & the article. I’ve always known you to have a good heart. It sure explains where we are now. So to fix things, we have our work cut out for us! Dale can you help?

  12. John H says:

    @Wisconsin Conservative Digest: You’re simply lying. As noted in the article, Republicans have continually been challenged to show any evidence of any voter fraud, including in federal court, and have roundly failed, with the exception of one or two cases perpetrated by Republicans. The impact of two cases on vote totals is statistically meaningless, less than the inevitable noise of uncountable ballots, and much, much less than the statistically significant suppression of thousands of votes. From an election integrity standpoint, allowing a few fraud cases gives a much more accurate count than disenfranchising thousands of legal voters, but you don’t want integrity or even democracy, you want to unjustly seize power. You’re a bad person, intentionally lying to advance an ideology ONLY predicated on securing more power for the already-powerful, and you should feel bad. Please reform your behavior or get off of the internet forever.

  13. WashCoRepub says:

    Whenever a reporter needs someone to bad-mouth Republicans, they call up Dale Schultz. He’s as reliable as rain; a RINO who didn’t even vote for Act 10.

  14. Sam says:

    @ WashCoRepub

    Your response is Dale Schultz isn’t even a “real” Republican. That’s not the point of the article and not really worth the time you spent typing it.

    Do you have a credible response to the article’s statement that there is no significant voter fraud in this state? Give me and your fellow readers evidence to the contrary. If you can’t, you shouldn’t support efforts to combat a problem that doesn’t exist.

    Choosing partisan advantage over one of the foundations of our Republic, the vote, is anti-American and undemocratic.

  15. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Well we have followed this for years and now we will find out cause, it is going to happen.
    In 1977 the Left blocked Carter from doing the same thing. Now locals who are guilty of fraud are trying to block study. The all the dead people, group homes, nursing homes, moved, college dups, aliens, felons, operatives moving round ,and fake people and we are going to find millions of fraud.
    Anyone want to bet?

  16. Paul says:

    Let’s everybody take WCD up on its bet and bankrupt the bustard.

  17. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Yes, name it

  18. Jake formerly of the LP says:

    The fact that Dale Schultz isn’t a “real” Republican in 2017 speaks volumes, don’t it, Bradley Boy.

    FIRE ALL WISGOPS IN 2018. They are NOT legitimately elected anyway.

  19. WCD:

    Show me proof–or are you fake news???

  20. JPKMKE says:

    Oh no…there is no voter fraud here. All of our voter rolls are absolutely perfect and legal. Let’s not pursue a better system.

  21. Vincent Hanna says:

    Yes don’t focus on the real problem of Russia focus on the fake problem. Trump says voter fraud cost him popular vote with zero evidence and people believe him. Those people probably also believe we have child slave colonies on Mars.

  22. Sam says:

    @ JPKMKE

    What evidence do you have to support your assertion?

  23. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    The “proof will be in the pudding” with this Pence group.
    In 1977 Carter wanted to move on voters fraud but the Dem cities, counties stopped him.
    The police report of the Milwaukee, police widely distrusted again the will of Flynn and Barrett isi the proof, but there have been few prosecutions by McCann/Chisholm wouldn’t prosecute any Dems for 50 years.
    Our voter rolls are rife with dead people, moved, duplicate registrations, in the state and nation, college students duplication, felons, aliens and those Operatives that come into Wisconsin, register, vote early, then leave. This happened in the Van Wanguard race and in the 2012 race for Prez. Lena Taylor and 29 people registered in one house.
    We have been pushing the GOP, election commissions for year and the Milwaukee Journal to do their jobs but none will do it.
    Voter rolls are not purged regularly cause the left screams, like now. Why cause they vote these people.
    We are really happy to see the Pence program and predict that there will be 10 million, at leas,t problems in the USA and the 3-5 million votes Trump talked about, will be nothing but Conservative..

  24. Bruce Murphy says:

    To WCD: Regarding the “police report” you frequently mention, as I’ve previously noted, it had no author or name credited, was done without authorization by some members of the Milwaukee Police Department as Police Chief Flynn later noted, in distancing the department from it. Even so, it found no evidence of double voting or invalid addresses. Later, D.A. Mike McCann and U.S. Attorney Biskupic did a joint bipartisan study of Milwaukee’s voting and found no evidence of a conspiracy and minuscule examples of illegal voting, mostly a handful of felons. Biskupic was a Republican appointee who not shy about investigating Democrats.

    In the meantime the federal government had passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which required states to improve their systems and Wisconsin made improvements in the Statewide Voter Registration Databases and in Voter Identification Procedures and state officials, from that time on, were quite confident that any double voting could be picked up by the system. And in fact there have been very few instances of any kind of fraud since then, which is why Van Hollen and Schimel haven’t been able to make a good case in court. I think in analyzing fraud, it doesn’t make sense to talk about what might or might not have happened before the HAVA improvements were fully implemented. (Even after that Wisconsin won a grant to make more improvements in 2008, some of the detail is here: http://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/hava)

  25. Vincent Hanna says:

    Sure this time will be different from the last thousand times that fraud claims have been made.

  26. Jake formerly of the LP says:

    Good stuff here about GOP voter-purge outfits like the ACRU and True The Vote, who get millions from the “charitable” Bradley Foundation.

    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a56180/voter-purge-team-bush-justice-department/

    And I know this’ll shock you, but they’re not investigating the voter rolls in Waukesha or Washington County. The GOP are illegitimate cheaters.

  27. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Yes, Bruce you blab the standard Leftwing crap about lack of fraud that the Left has used for years.
    trouble is that some of us that have been round here for decades know it to be true and now we will find out. I challenge anyone to put up or shut up and bet
    on the results.
    I know how the Left hates the cops so naturally they would never believe that results of their work. double voting is not the problem the other things are.

  28. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    We have sent a lots of info to this committee. They il be examine the state, not just Milwaukee or Waukesha, so all of you that believe elections are fraud free that voter rolls are perfect and that no one votes oro anyone else or operatives do not come in here and vote at election time, we will find out. Send your ideas to Pence.

  29. AG says:

    Bruce, come on… that’s a lot of spin!

    -Regarding the “police report” you frequently mention, as I’ve previously noted, it had no author or name credited, *It was completed by a special investigations unit, it’s not like Flynn or the MPD doesn’t know who did it. Probably best for the investigators that this isn’t public considering the fervent backlash by fraud deniers.

    -was done without authorization by some members of the Milwaukee Police Department as Police Chief Flynn later noted, *It was done with full authorization, only the recommendations portion was unauthorized.

    -Even so, it found no evidence of double voting *false- at least 4 people double voted but because the record keeping by the election commission was so poor they couldn’t get a conviction. There were more, but they declined further prosecution because of the mismanagement that made it impossible to get the convictions. Lack of convictions doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!

    -or invalid addresses. *False, there were still dozens of invalid addresses that couldn’t be accounted for even after generously purging clerical errors from the lists.

    You also failed to address that hundreds more votes were cast than registered to vote, the fact they couldn’t track the number of illegal immigrants who voted, the fact they found felons and others ineligible to vote had indeed voted, and more.

    Milwaukee, and surely other municipalities, election commissions are so poorly run and there is clear evidence of shady things going on, that even with stricter laws, this shows that there are indeed people voting that shouldn’t be. These people either do it on purpose or without knowing, but it happens. Unfortunately because it is set up in a way that makes it nearly impossible to track, there’s no way of knowing how bad (or not) it really is. Democrats know this likely helps them more, so they fight any system that would making tracking the problems easier.

    For those who wish to read the full report:
    http://content.clearchannel.com/cc-common/mlib/1176/02/1176_1204055151.pdf

  30. Vincent Hanna says:

    AG you sound as crazy as WCD. You spew the same nonsense and provide no evidence whatsoever to support anything you say. It’s pathetic.

  31. Vincent Hanna says:

    If that report is so credible why is wcd the only person who ever mentions It?

  32. AG says:

    Vincent, what do you mean don’t support? I cited actual findings and linked the report… good god, what more do you want? Stop jumping to your default jabs.

  33. Bruce Murphy says:

    AG, yes the unnamed “task force” did find discrepancies, pretty much the same ones reported in a series of some 30 or more stories by the Journal Sentinel, they seemed to echo each other. But I have to say, as a reporter I generally don’t put much stock in anonymous research. And the follow up investigation by McCann and Biskupic found almost nothing. And that was more than 12 years ago, which is ancient history at this point as federal and state funding to clean up voting records after that had a big impact. So much so that Republicans have been unable to prove any voter fraud since then, as Schultz notes and as the court cases on Wisconsin have repeatedly shown.

  34. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Cause the press and Barrettt buried it, cause it shaped the fraud. WE had 45 pages of evidence that a state senator double voted but he was Chisholms buddy so they buried it. we repotted obvious fraud in group homes forever but McCann did nothing.

  35. AG says:

    Bruce, the line is always “Can’t prove” in relation to double voting or voter impersonation. Not only is it an obvious “duh” statement since our system isn’t designed to catch or stop those actions, that statement is also (and mainly) a diversion from all the other voter fraud types.

  36. Vincent Hanna says:

    So despite Kobach not finding any voter fraud in Kansas despite his best efforts along with countless rigorous studies that have found no evidence of voter fraud it happens a lot because well you just know? One discredited report is so weak it’s not even flimsy evidence and that’s all you’ve got. Again it’s a joke and aligns you with crazy WCD.

  37. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    GOP has been unable to prove any fraud, just like the Journal, cause they have not tried.
    Journal did lots of work in last election trying to prove that Voter ID held down vote, and they came up with nothing.
    We have repeatedly outlined how to find fraud and no one will do it.

    Why are all of you lefties so scarfed of this investigation, you want to prove Trump is nuts, RIGHT? This would do it then.

  38. JPKMKE says:

    Sam, I’m not a Republican and I don’t think this should be a partisan issue…although people fall in line right behind the political rhetoric don’t they. Our election controls and records couldn’t pass a simple audit. There are not enough controls to keep ineligible voters from voting. It’s the “goose at thanksgiving dinner” when asking for records because the States don’t want to revisit the integrity of their process. Unfortunately it has become a political hockey puck instead of protecting our rights as an electorate.

  39. Vincent Hanna says:

    Wouldn’t States controlled by the GOP be eager to prove the existence of voter fraud were it real?

  40. Vincent Hanna says:

    They have tried and failed in Kansas for instance. Maybe that’s why moderate Republicans don’t scream voter fraud more often.

  41. AG says:

    Vincent, that report is NOT discredited… Flynn disavowed the recommendations and said he didn’t authorize them… but that does not discredit the findings.

    I can’t help it if WCD is right every once in a while… even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

  42. Kristine Ann says:

    I know of two cases where people bragged about voting twice. Both were Republican voters who voted for DJT. If the Republicans have proof, why haven’t they shown it? It’s because their claims are bogus. If their redistricting efforts were not biased, why did they do it behind closed doors, where other Republicans had to sign a paper stating they wouldn’t divulge the results. There has never been any proven voter fraud and there is no need for voter ID law. The law is so restrictive that it just keeps people from voting. GET RID OF IT!

  43. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Proof is pretty obvious cause all the Dems states and heavily Dem areas are appalled that they are going to get audited. We can hardly wait to be proved right. if we are wrong as the l;eft complains why ar they peeing in pants. Registration mistakes felons, aliens voting, dup votes, dead people voting, will be over 0 million.

  44. Vincent Hanna says:

    0 Million?! WOW!!

    Why did the Republican Attorney General of Mississippi tell Kobach to go jump in a lake? He is only one of many Republicans to do so. This is fringe stuff for the likes of Breitbart (great company AG!). Respectable conservatives and Republicans don’t buy the voter fraud nonsense.

  45. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Me thinks that there are lots of problems around country and we know it cause we have heard the stories for decades in states.

  46. Vincent Hanna says:

    That’s the best you got? “We know it” doesn’t quite compete with facts on the ground. Wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, for good reason.

  47. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    That is why I love this all the Lefties whining. We now shall find out who has been cheating for decades: Big cites, counties. Daley at election time: “make sure every Democrats in your precincts is voted, no matter what or who does it”.

  48. Gary Rebholz says:

    Repubs’ retail strategy is so good at rebranding. The “voter fraud” issue should really be rebranded by the other side. A local version could be rebranded as “Walker fraud”, although that doesn’t cover the repubs desperate nationwide effort.

  49. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    It is obvious how much fraud there is, take all those whiney Lefties in the big cities, counties ,that are having a fit over this study. It will really shake every one up when they find out.

  50. Kurt says:

    My goodness, this is depressing. I’m not one for name calling but whoever said it up top is right, WCC and AG are bad people. Your insistence on this perpetual cycle of election fraud is so clearly born of evil.

    If I’m even willing to take their word for it, this is the most clear case of the cure being worse than the disease. I guarantee the number of legal voters that didn’t vote due to the combination of added difficulties and the constant drumbeat of fraud FAR exceeds any number of actual fraud prevented.

    So very sad. Being a member of party is one thing. Being completely disingenuous about your motives is quite another.

    This is f***ing America, a great democracy! And you’re here making voting harder for people in so many obvious ways. How gross and unAmerican. I don’t even know what to say, it’s just so sad and depressing to see people like AG and WCC (and many others) fight like hell for something that doesn’t make any problem better, at the expense of good people. I mean, ugh, it’s just so icky. I honestly don’t know how you can feel good about that.

  51. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Well Kurt, we are going o find out once and for all. Why is the Left so frantic to stop the study? Scared of what they will find, Kiddies!!!

  52. Kurt says:

    WCC, I guess that’s the point. I’m not scared or afraid of anything. I’m just saddened that the people the purport to be this country’s biggest supporters are the quickest to tear down its most basic principles.

  53. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    we are making sure that we have honest elections, rolls are clean, no felons,illegals voting etc. That is the American way. The Left way is Chicago.

  54. JPKMKE says:

    Whether someone thinks there is no evidence of voter fraud is meaningless without integrity in the system. Saying there is nothing there is wishful thinking among the politically motivated. It’s the equivalent of asking Enron whether they see any mistakes or fraud. Our election processes couldn’t pass a simple audit. It goes like this…[auditor] Show me the controls in place to ensure people who are voting are eligible to vote… [election official] Well Madge here checks it against this sheet and if the name they tell her is on the sheet we give them a ballot. If the name is not then she asks June who sits next to her. They both pretty much know a lot of people in the precinct so they usually give them a ballot. [auditor] Where is the control to ensure that those people standing there are not telling the bus full of people they just brought in who to vote for? [election official] Oh them? If we see something we tell them, but damage is done. Can’t do anything about that.

  55. AG says:

    Kurt, if the desire for fair and honest elections makes someone a bad person, then I gladly accept the title. I can’t even imagine what you call criminals. It must be horrible.

    What I can’t figure out is if you blindly accept the talking point of no fraud, or if you’ve recognized that when partisans say “no fraud has been found” that it only means we can’t prove it under our current system because of how it is designed and you’re willingly tow that line for your own political purposes.

    We know that a certain percentage of illegal immigrants vote, because they’ve readily admitted it. Whether it’s the high number Trump claims (doubt it) or only a couple million, it DOES happen. Yet the same partisans try to whitewash it and claim that idea is “debunked” even though it clearly hasn’t. But we’re just going to keep saying no fraud exists. OK.. that’s cool, you can believe that. I’m just going to go ahead and support closer investigations and controls so we can see what really happens.

  56. AG says:

    JPKMKE, don’t bother explaining that. Half of the people you’re trying to explain it to won’t listen because they’re too staunch in following their ideological leadership who say there’s no problem. The other half already knows and understands that system but they know their party largely benefits from it.

    That’s why it has become a partisan issue… because the ones fighting against any changes are the ones who benefit most from our current system. I’m not surprised that the “double voters” tend to be right wing supporters because they try to make it far more complicated than it needs to be. Meanwhile, illegal immigrants, felons, and others who are ineligible and probably don’t even realize they are ineligible, are encouraged to vote by the left because the left knows they’ll likely vote democrat. The system is great as-is for them.

  57. Vincent Hanna says:

    No fraud isn’t some “leftie” talking point. It is the result of countless studies and investigations. Why else do moderate Republicans avoid making the voter fraud claim? Again you are aligned with the likes of WCD and Breitbart here, not mainstream Republicans.

    That is incendiary AG, the claim that Democrats are out there knowingly telling people who can’t vote to vote. You are saying those Democrats are telling people to commit a crime. Where is the evidence? I want to see it. I don’t know what your agenda is with this issue but you sound like a rabid right-wing lunatic from the fringe when you make these claims, not the reasonable conservative you make yourself out to be. Normally you are about evidence and data and proof, but not here. The evidence says voter fraud isn’t real yet you persist in claiming that it is. You are downright alt-right on this, in Bannon company.

  58. Vincent Hanna says:

    New report says 200,000 people in Wisconsin couldn’t vote because of the voter ID law. Trump won by what 26,000 votes. I’m sure AG is outraged by voter suppression.

  59. Vincent Hanna says:

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/why-republicans-cant-find-the-big-voter-fraud-conspiracy-214972

    “Ashcroft commissioned the nation’s 93 U.S. attorneys to make voting fraud a priority of their offices. Over the next four years, those prosecutors launched more than 300 investigations. But in the end, the government had little to show for it. On July 26, 2006, the day before Bush signed a renewal of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department released a fact sheet summarizing the Voting Integrity Initiative’s accomplishments. Federal prosecutors had charged 119 people with election crimes and convicted just 86. The worst examples were vote-buying schemes in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia that helped keep local politicians in power. Cases that had fixated GOP officials—like the “major criminal enterprise” in St. Louis—were not substantiated.”

  60. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    All of those frightened to death about a study of all of the voter rolls, full of felons, aliens, deaths, duplicates, Operatives multiple registrations, the Milwaukee Police report have strong reasons, and they are not good. Everyone should be for cleaning up the rolls, getting aliens, felons, duplicates, dead people off the rolls and not voting. When were the rolls in your city last purged. Who takes off dead peoel, pool that moved, go to college? Service? How come all those cities known for voter fraud, like Chicago are violently opposed/ California where all the illegals all vote?

  61. AG says:

    Vincent, that 200,000 is the biggest bunch of nonsense… come on man, you’re better than that.

    And Democrats don’t have to be out there knowingly telling someone to vote who isn’t eligible to vote… all they have to do is do wide get out the vote campaigns targeted at demographics of people who would likely vote for them and hey, if some ineligible people get caught in those wide nets, who can really control that, right? It’s a wonderful system, ‘ey?

    If there’s a system in place that lets these sorts of things happen, no organized conspiracy is needed. Democrat and progressive leaders aren’t stupid, they know how this works. Either you do too, or you’re blindly following what you’re fed.

  62. Vincent Hanna says:

    Ha I knew that would be your response! That’s my point exactly. One is impossible but you just know the other to be true without evidence.

    So you have no evidence? You’d scream at someone making an incendiary claim like that without proof in most cases. You are a hypocrite.

    What about the Politico story? How can you ignore that? Ashcroft made it a priority and ordered an investigation nationwide and found nada.

  63. AG says:

    Vincent, you summarize my point here when you said, “Normally you are about evidence and data and proof, but not here. ”

    That is my point… I want data and evidence but the system is so poorly run right now that we can’t get any. The MPD study definitively demonstrated, and no one refutes, that our election system is a disaster and set up so it is impossible to really know what is going on. They literally have such a poorly organized system that even a local athletic booster club has more oversight and can run better audits. That’s all I’m asking for, and for any moderate person, that is reasonable to ask for.

  64. Vincent Hanna says:

    But it has been investigated! Ashcroft coordinated a nationwide investigation into this and found nothing! What since they didn’t find what you hoped for you’re pretending that didn’t happen?

    If I made an incendiary claim like “In an increasingly diverse America the GOP is doing everything it can to make it impossible for people who vote Democrat to vote in a widespread suppression effort” you’d cry foul. But you want people to take your incendiary claim without evidence seriously? Come on AG. You should be better than that. You are stooping very low.

  65. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Listen to Hanna you know the Left is hiding things like Chicago, California all the states that are disasters, are crooked, as hell and do not want this. and they send out goofs like Hanna to try to block this. Carter wanted to clean up our elections as pointed out by the Milwaukee police report but the left stopped him then. Cause the big cities, counties are crooked as hell.
    I estimate 10 million on rolls that should not be on them. Everytime someone wants to clean rolls, the Left goes berserk like Hanna, goes to court to protect the fraud to keep in power. Now we will find out. Bets anyone?

  66. Vincent Hanna says:

    So are you saying John Ashcroft and the 93 U.S. Attorneys he had investigate voter fraud are incompetent idiots for finding nothing? They must all have been sent out by “the left.”

  67. AG says:

    Vincent, it’s been investigated and regularly those investigations show that we can’t bring enough evidence to convict people of impersonation voter fraud. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. How many ways do you want me to explain that? One more time, our system is so poor that there is no way to do a good job to stop it.

    Circumstantial evidence is all around us. That is why I keep referencing the MPD report. Even in their small sample they found dozens of individual cases of fraud or ineligible voters, but they couldn’t convict anyone because of how poorly the elections are run.

    Do you want me to start linking all the times where fraudulent and ineligible voters were shown to vote? You regularly quote sites that talk about lack of convictions for voter impersonation… when will you address felons, illegal immigrants, other non-citizens, double voting, etc?

  68. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Stanley, Journal, told me that they did study of people that voted in 2012 and did not vote in 2016 and they found nothing bad. If they did they would have had headlines. People did not vote cause the Inner city males in state did not like Hillary and they ran lousy campaign and GOTV. 200,000 is joke, not one ounce of proof, but let us check the wisconsin rolls and voting problems and pence will do that.

  69. Vincent Hanna says:

    I never said it never happens. The point is that it happens incredibly rarely and studies and investigations including the one by Ashcroft have revealed that there is no widespread voter fraud problem.

    Circumstantial evidence (including elected officials actually saying they are trying to suppress votes) regarding GOP voter suppression tactics is also all around us. But you ignore and dismiss that while claiming your own circumstantial evidence is legit. So you have a credibility problem.

    Yes I would like you to provide evidence showing that felons voting and illegal immigrants voting is a major problem in this country.

  70. John says:

    WCD, if this magical report comes out and finds less than 1,000 incidences in Wisconsin in the last general election, what then? I highly doubt you will hop on here and provide some contrition. Every single time there has been something that wholly refutes your BS you are nowhere to be found in the comments section.

    Who the heck even has time vote multiple times to have any amount of consequence in any election? The very same people you love to trash who have “zero desire” to work and lead productive lives?

  71. AG says:

    The “no widespread voter fraud” is just a marketing slogan for those who like how the system runs. There’s so many examples to find despite our system being set up in a way that makes it so hard to verify.

    MPD’s study found dozens of apparent fraudulent votes, but they couldn’t secure a conviction on any cases because the system is so poorly run they couldn’t get more than circumstantial evidence. This was just from a few precincts in the city and only the most obvious cases. Imagine how big the issue is.

    There have been over 700 convictions for voter fraud tabulated by the right leaning heritage foundation. Considering how hard it is to get a conviction, can you imagine how big the real numbers are?

    800+ self reported non citizens in ohio were registered to vote and roughly 1 in 6 had actually voted. That was just self reported! Imagine how many are there that aren’t self reporting.

    The Old Dominion University study looked self reported non-citizen voters. Despite claims this study was debunked, they went back and looked at only those who self reported during two consecutive years and found the statistics came out statistically the same as the larger sample, showing that they have a very solid case. Again, this was just SELF REPORTED ineligibile non-citizen voters. Imagine how big the numbers are? Their estimates could put potentially in the millions.

    One county alone in Virginia removed over 9000 people from juror pools because they were non-citizens… where did the names come from? Voter registrations! That is one county over a 5 year period. Imagine duplicating that throughout the state! That was on top of tens of thousands of felons registered to vote.

    In Raleigh’s November election last year, they found 441 felons who illegally voted, 41 non-citizens, 24 voters who voted twice and two people who falsely voted using the name of a family member who’d recently died. That was one election in one city and only the ones they were able to catch.

    This stuff is everywhere. Why is it so ridiculous to ask for a system that keeps these sorts of things from happening? Do you think it’s impossible to create a secure system where everyone is able to vote who is eligible? If you think that, how can you trust ANYTHING that the government does?

  72. Wisconsin Conservative Digest says:

    Rolls are full of dead people, moved, felons, aliens, college kids, dups, Operatives. Wait and see, you should push this to find out.

  73. AG says:

    Hey Vincent, I’ve said on multiple occasions that the restrictions on out of state ID’s, especially for students, are too restrictive and I don’t agree with them. I’m not positive that it was meant to be voter suppression, but I can see the argument.

    Does that make me more credible now that I reminded you of that?

  74. Wisconsin Conservative Dgiest says:

    People like Schultz, limited abilities, did not find fraud cause they did not know where/how to look. As an elected Committeeman for decades, worker/observer at the polls, on too many committees to mention can tell you that throughout the country fraud is huge.
    There are at least ten million on rolls that do not belong; dead, nursing homes, assisted living homes, name changes, duplication, college, service gone, apts. moved, illegals like in Minnesota Franken race, felons, bused in at Van Wangard race. operatives, that move around .
    Wisconsin just dropped 350, 000. Used to be that clerks mailed out post cards regular to clean rolls, no more, the Left stopped them. People get voted and once voted, can never take back.
    Fraud is in the early votes/absentee. Operatives come into Wisconsin from all the Red/Blue states within 200 miles of wis. They do their job, register, vote early and leave.
    In states where the whole process is controlled by the Left; IIl. Ca., NY fraud is endemic.
    Thank full the Pence study will show this all up, that is why the Left is apoplectic about the study. Triumphs way underestimated the illegal vote.

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