In a case that can only be described as ironic, a Wisconsin Republican donor has been charged with 13 felony counts of election fraud during both state and national elections in 2011 and 2012.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Robert Monroe, a health care industry executive from the Shorewood suburb of Milwaukee, is being accused of casting “two ballots in the April 2011 Supreme Court election, two in the August 2011 Alberta Darling recall election, five in the Scott Walker-Tom Barrett recall, one illegal ballot in an August 2012 primary, and two ballots in the November 2012 presidential election.”
In the presidential election, Monroe cast an in-person absentee ballot in Shorewood on Nov. 1, and then drove a rental car to Lebanon, Ind., where he also owns a house, and showed his Indiana drivers’ license to vote in person on Nov. 6.
Before the 2012 recall election, Republican National Party Chairman, Reince Priebus, made claims that Democratic voter fraud could account for up to 2 percent of the vote. Gov. Walker supported Priebus’s claims, despite the fact that a 2008 bipartisan voter-fraud investigation in Milwaukee County resulted in just 20 prosecutions, mostly for felons who were not qualified to vote.
Monroe’s case comes just months after U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman ruled the state’s voter-ID law enacted in 2011 “violate both the equal-protection clause of the Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.”
Unsurprisingly, conservatives are shifting the blame to the Democrats, claiming that stricter voter-ID laws would have prevented these crimes, despite the fact that Monroe presented state-issued IDs in both Wisc. and Ind. Given that Wisconsin officials say that this is the worst case of voter fraud in recent history, maybe the GOP should focus their attention on their own party instead of wasting time trying to keep so many from voting legally.
