September 8, 2022 – Madison, Wisconsin) The Wisconsin Election Commission, in a unique twist, will be considering its own alleged illegal action, after Thomas More Society attorneys filed a complaint on Behalf of voters on September 8, 2022. The complaint was made against the Wisconsin Election Commission on behalf of the Wisconsin Voters Alliance and its President, Ron Heuer. The filing accuses the Wisconsin Election Commission and its members of violating the federal Help America Vote Act by its contracted use of Electronic Registration Information Center.
The federal law requires that the Wisconsin Elections Commission and its officials, by itself and by themselves, respectively, maintain and implement WisVote, the state’s voter information database. Instead, in violation of the federal Help America Vote Act, the Wisconsin Election Commission has contracted with Electronic Registration Information Center, Inc. to maintain and implement WisVote. The complaint contends that this illegal delegation of this government function to an outside entity has enabled the potential rigging of Wisconsin’s federal elections towards particular federal candidates – something that is illegal under the Help America Vote Act.
Thomas More Society Special Counsel Erick Kaardal called the commission’s decision to eschew its federally designated duty and outsource the task a “catastrophic mistake.”
The complaint details how, rather than complying with the Congressionally enacted Help America Vote Act, the Wisconsin Elections Commission has entered into a membership agreement with Electronic Registration Information Center, Inc., authorizing “the transmission of information and data related to the registration of electors in this state [by the Wisconsin Elections Commission] to the Electronic Registration Information Center, Inc., for processing and sharing with other member states and governmental units.”
“Under the Help America Vote Act,” explained Kaardal, “the United States Congress deemed that maintaining the statewide voter registration system database is seen as such a core governmental purpose that it cannot be delegated to any other organization, including the Electronic Registration Information Center, Inc., for which – according to its website -Wisconsin would have paid a one-time joining fee of $25,000, and an annual member fee of somewhere between $16,000 and $74,000.”
Federal law requires “states and their election officials to maintain and implement statewide voter registration lists.”
“Doing what is legally required of you is different than seeing that someone else gets it done,” observed Kaardal, noting that the concept of hiring someone to do it would never fly for serving a sentence or passing a test.
“As every Wisconsinite knows,” Kaardal elaborated, “some things must be done by oneself, if at all possible, even if done badly, like our elders eating, dressing and going to the bathroom. Similarly, the Help America Vote Act requires the Wisconsin Election Commission to maintain WisVote by itself, even if it does so poorly. The commission has made a catastrophic mistake by allowing the Electronic Registration Information Center into Wisconsin’s data base management. Wisconsinites will never be satisfied until they get control of their voter database back.”
Read the Complaint filed on September 8, 2022, in State of Wisconsin Before the Wisconsin Elections Commission by Thomas More Society attorneys in Wisconsin Voters Alliance, et al. v. Wisconsin Election Commission, et al. on behalf of the Wisconsin Voters Alliance and its President, Ron Heuer here [ https://thomasmoresociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/WI-HAVA-Complaint-9-8-22.pdf ].
The Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, religious liberty, and election integrity. Headquartered in Chicago and with offices across the country, Thomas More Society fosters support for these causes by providing high quality pro bono legal services from local trial courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. For more information, please visit thomasmoresociety.org.
The Thomas More Society officially launched its own Election Integrity Initiative in 2022 to preserve and protect Americans’ sacred right to vote against those who would use money or other illegal means such as conditional “gift” or “grant” agreements to distort, evade or compromise electoral laws and safeguards.
