The Sconi

Thousands of nursing home patients deemed incompetent to vote are not listed in the state’s WisVote database as being under ‘no voter’ guardianship orders, two organizations allege.

A joint ongoing investigation by the Wisconsin Voter Alliance (WVA) and the election integrity section of public interest law firm Thomas More Society (TMS), shows that in 13 counties, the WisVote database has 123 residents under no voter guardianship. Reports from the 13 county registers in probate offices show 2,505 listed as incompetent. TMS filed writ of mandamus petitions in those 13 counties (Brown, Crawford, Juneau, Kenosha, Lafayette, Langlade, Marquette, Ozaukee, Polk, Taylor, Vernon, Vila and Walworth) on July 26 to secure the guardianship information for those counties.

The WisVote database is administered by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

“We came upon this when we saw that WisVote had some counties listing no incompetent voters,” Ron Heuer, president of the WVA told The Sconi. “We knew that had to be a mistake.

“It’s a massive amount of work getting the figures from probate and comparing the results with WisVote, but we are going to do it for every county,” Heuer added.

Erick Kaardal, counsel for TMS, said in a press release that the organization has a theory regarding the discrepancy.

“Our investigative hypothesis is that the groups who inserted themselves illegally into Wisconsin’s election administration process have lined up nursing home directors in urban cities to elicit votes from every nursing home resident, even those who have been deemed ‘incompetent’ to vote,” Kaardal said in a statement. “By the Wisconsin Elections Commission not entering the names of the wards who are under ‘no vote’ guardianship orders, the nursing home directors do not have to be bothered by a question such as which residents have lost their right to vote by court order. 

“It’s quite ingenious really. And the big, progressive talking point, is ‘elderly people have the right to vote’; but, that talking point is simply not true for those wards under a ‘no vote’ guardianship order.”

Kaardal cited the case of Sandra Klitzke of Outagamie County. Klitzke was restricted from registering from voting in any election by order of the Outagamie County Circuit Court in February 2020. Yet, WisVote has her recorded as voting in both the Nov. 3, 2020, and April 6, 2021, elections. And on March 30, 2022, WisVote indicates that she requested and was sent an absentee ballot.