Wisconsin election clerks referred 30 instances of suspected fraud to prosecutors over the past year

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin election clerks referred 30 instances of suspected fraud and voting irregularities to prosecutors over the last year, according to a new report.

The nation’s multilayered election processes provide many safeguards that keep voter fraud generally detectable and rare, according to current and former election administrators for the Democratic and Republican parties. America’s elections also are decentralized into thousands of independent voting jurisdictions — Wisconsin, alone, has more than 1,800 local clerks — making it almost impossible to pull off a large-scale vote-rigging operation that could tip a race. But fraud does happen occasionally.

Wisconsin law requires clerks to inform the Wisconsin Election Commission whenever they refer a case of suspected fraud or some other voting irregularity to a district attorney. The commission, in turn, is required to compile the data into an annual report to the Legislature. The commission is poised to approve a report Friday that lists referrals made between July 1, 2023, and Sept. 12 of this year.

Eighteen referrals involved someone voting twice. Clerks in Milwaukee County reported seven instances of someone voting twice during the 2024 spring election and eight instances in the 2023 spring election. In each election, those people voted absentee in-person and by absentee mail ballot, according to the report.

Clerks in Douglas and Kenosha counties also reported a person voting twice in the 2024 spring election. In the Douglas County case, the person voted in-person and in-person absentee. In the Kenosha County case, the person voted in-person in two different municipalities. Clerks in Calumet County reported that someone voted twice in-person absentee in the 2024 partisan primary.

Kenosha County clerks also reported six instances of a felon registering to vote during the 2024 spring election. Polk County clerks referred a case of someone who voted in Wisconsin in the 2023 spring election after registering in another state. Douglas County also referred discrepancies between municipal and county totals for write-in candidates in the 2024 spring election to prosecutors.

The report does not identify anyone and does not include case dispositions.

The commission’s 2023 report showed that clerks referred 44 cases of suspected fraud to district attorneys between June 25, 2022, and June 30, 2023.

Wisconsin’s voting-age population stood at almost 4.7 million as of 2022, according to the elections commission.