Of the 43 people the Elections Commission referred to local DAs for prosecution on possible double voting in November 2018, 26 were suspected of casting ballots in Illinois as well as Wisconsin, according to records reviewed by WisPolitics.com.
The cases also involve people who may have voted in Wisconsin and western states such as Colorado, Washington and Nevada, as well as Iowa. In eight of the cases, those flagged in an audit of the 2018 election are suspected of casting ballots at polling sites in Wisconsin and Illinois on Election Day.
The rest included a mix of voting in person in one state and absentee, by mail or through early voting opportunities in another. In eight cases, those flagged are suspected of voting absentee in both states, by absentee in one and through early voting in the other, or by absentee in one and by mail in the other.
The Elections Commission in March announced it had referred 43 cases of possible double voting to 19 county DAs for review. But the agency didn’t detail which counties.
The commission this week provided WisPolitics.com a list of the 43 cases, the counties to which they were referred and a general description of the case. But it declined to release the identity of the 43 suspected of double voting, saying that information had to be released by district attorneys handling the cases.
Several county DAs contacted by WisPolitics.com said they couldn’t provide information on the cases without the names.
Meanwhile, Wood County DA Craig Lambert told WisPolitics.com it was “indeed possible” that county resident John Nehring voted in both Wisconsin and Nevada. But he closed the investigation after the county sheriff determined Nehring has since passed away.
The Elections Commission listed the Wood County case as involving someone who may have voted absentee in Wisconsin and at the polls in Nevada.
“I asked the sheriff’s department to investigate and it is indeed possible, but it also appears he’s deceased,” Lambert said. “Because it was determined he was deceased, no further investigation was needed and the investigation was closed.”
Ozaukee County received one case alleging someone voted absentee in Wisconsin and then by mail in Colorado.
Ozaukee DA Adam Gerol told WisPoltics.com his office has referred the case to local police for further investigation.
“The problem with these cases historically has been identifying that they are in fact the same person that voted given the type of voting protections that are done,” Gerol said. “Historically these have been a handful, and from my perspective reflect the frustration that probably many prosecutors have with these cases.”
Gerol said proving the allegation of double voting can require finding someone who recognized the suspect at both polling sites. Otherwise, it’s a matter of having video or photo evidence of the suspect at both sites, but the odds of either of those are low. That’s because these cases can come a year or more after the election in question and most states have restrictions on recording equipment at polling sites.
DAs or other officials for Sheboygan, Green and Eau Claire Counties all confirmed to WisPolitics.com their cross-state voting cases are also still under review.
The possible cases of double voting were flagged by the Electronic Registration Information Center to conduct cross-state checks of the 2018 election.
It is a class I felony to vote more than once in the same election, and the commission noted the 43 criminal referrals represent 0.002 percent of the nearly 2.7 million ballots cast in the November 2018 election.
See the list of referrals:
https://www.wispolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/200518Referral.pdf
