Wisconsin has mandatory safeguards to its same-day voter registration process to "audit" voters' claimed addresses and identify which registrations should be inactivated and referred to prosecutors. In 2023, the Wisconsin Elections Commission issued updated guidance about this address verification process. For more than a year, the Public Interest Legal Foundation has been stonewalled in its efforts to obtain records about the creation and implementation of that guidance.
Lauren Bis, director of communications and engagement at PILF, tells AFN Wisconsin isn't alone in allowing a system it says is "wrought for fraud and abuse."
"Eighteen states in total allow same-day voter registration …. We call it a 'vote now and verify later' [system]," she explains. "You [the voter] give them this address and your name and they send a postcard there – and if it bounces back or they get something from someone that's like 'wrong address' [or] 'person doesn't live here,' they're supposed to take action to refer this person to the district attorney for prosecution."
But according to Bis, that's not happening.
"… Under this new guidance, it's very beyond a reasonable doubt," she says. "They're raising the standards for the referring in these investigations. And then you have Soros[-backed] district attorneys in Milwaukee, for instance, who don't act on these prosecutions of referrals. They don't do anything with it."
Clearly, says Bis, Wisconsin is "creating a system where there's no deterrence. Why wouldn't you show up and claim something as your address that's not? It's just not a good way to run an election."
PILF argues Wisconsin needs to be subject to the federal election transparency law because concealing the election process from the public "encourages disinformation and distrust."
The case is Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Wisconsin Elections Commission.
