Another day, another allegation of voter fraud by Republicans. This one, courtesy of WKOW’s 27 News in Madison, Wisconsin…
Wisconsin Government Accountability Board records show Samantha Vos voted in the state’s April 3 election. Vos is the wife of Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester), the co-chair of the state’s powerful joint finance committee.
But records from Canyon County, Idaho show Samantha Vos swore under oath April 19 she was a resident of that state since early March. Vos’ declaration came as she filed for legal separation from her husband.
Wisconsin law requires twenty eight days of continuous residency prior to voting.
…
Records show Vos also voted in the June 5 gubernatorial recall election and the primary election earlier this month, as her legal action in Idaho continued.
Yes, it looks like, once again — no matter what the professional GOP “voter fraud” fraudsters and clowns like John Fund, Hans von Spakovsky and Matthew Vadum claim — if there is an epidemic of “voter fraud” in this country, it seems that its not Democrats, but Republicans, and often very very high-profle Republicans at that, who are carrying it out.
But wait! There is still more absurdity and/or irony and/or hypocrisy in this case…
According to PolitiScoop, Rep. Vos “has been a strong supporter” of Wisconsin Republican’s polling place Photo ID restriction law, which has been found in violation of the state’s Constitution in two different court cases by two different judges again and again and again.
(On Tuesday of this week, the state’s Republican Attorney General asked the state Supreme Court for an expedited hearing on both cases, consolidating the two and skipping the Appeals Court entirely which had also previously rejected appeals from the AG. Prior to the law being struck down by the two different state courts, The BRAD BLOG’s legal analyst, Ernie Canning, who had correctly predicted the case would be found unconstitutional, noted that its only hope for adoption would likely rest in the state’s often-very-partisan Republican-majority Supreme Court.)
PolitiScoop goes on to note that Rep. Vos had attempted to intervene in the court cases on behalf of the Republican’s voter suppression law, until ethics questions arose surrounding his attempt to do so, as WKOW explained in June:
Vos…declined to comment on who is paying the attorneys. Vos’ spokesperson Kit Beyer said Vos’ attorneys are working with state officials on the situation.
But that’s not all!
PolitiScoop also notes that Vos had been among those attempting to claim (without evidence) that there was fraud in the reported June 5th recall victory of Democrat John Lehman over incumbent Republican Van Wanggaard. In response to evidence-free claims of “fraud” by Republicans following the Democrat’s slim margin of just under 800 votes over the Republican, as announced on Election Night, PolitiFact found Vos’ claims to be “False”.
In their fact-check, they noted:
“Unfortunately, a portion of (the vote) was fraud,” Vos said, adding “I’m not sure the entire 800 vote margin was…”
Gousha interrupted and asked Vos if he could make the statement about fraud “with certainty.”
“I can, a portion,” Vos said. “Yeah, I do believe that.”
When pressed by PolitiFact to back up his claims of “certainty” that there had been fraud in the Lehman/Wanggaard race, Vos cited a report that the Racine County Sheriff had been investigating “election registration documents found in a dumpster, and complaints by a poll worker at one polling place.” (Neither were found to have been fraud.)
Vos also said, according to PolitiFact, that “he heard second hand that someone tried to use a Bed Bath and Beyond mailer as proof of address.” It’s unclear if that Bed Bath and Beyond was an Idaho branch near his estranged wife’s residence or not.
“I did not personally witness any voter fraud,” Vos said. “But some portion of what happened could be classified as fraud.”
And that’s what suffices for “certain” proof of voter fraud in GOP World.
Apparently, the only “portion of what happened” that could be “classified as fraud”, at this time, was courtesy of Vos’ own wife.
For the record, it’s unclear from the new reports whether Samantha Vos voted in person or via absentee. If by absentee — the way that voter fraud is usually carried out, in the instances where it occurs — there is no polling place Photo ID law in the world that would have kept her from doing so. If she voted in person at the polling place, despite having declared herself a resident of Idaho earlier this year, it’s likely she still retained an unexpired WI driver’s license and so, even under her own husband’s strict polling place Photo ID restriction law, likely would have had no problem casting her fraudulent votes this year.
All of that, in Wisconsin and dozens of other states where the GOP has taken over state legislatures and executive mansions over the past two years, even though a recent nationwide analysis of all election fraud cases in the country since 2000, as carried out by the Carnegie-Knight investigative journalism project News 21, revealed that over the past decade, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast, there are known to be just ten (10) cases of in-person polling place impersonation — the only type of voter fraud that could possibly be deterred by such laws, even as the same laws stand to disenfranchise tens of thousands of perfectly legal voters in the bargain.
VERY RECENTLY RELATED:
• 10+ Recent Cases of Voter Fraud by Very High-Profile GOPers
• MA Republican Investigated for Massive Absentee Ballot Fraud Scheme to Defeat Fellow Republican
• New Nationwide Study of Election Fraud Since 2000 Finds Just 10 Cases of In-Person Voter Fraud
Well done Brad, Paged at LGF hope you get lots of visits
Thanks, Daniel! Much appreciated!
Hi Brad,
I’ve been doing a little ‘cyber-stalking’ on this and it looks to me like Mrs. Vos claimed ‘residence’ in Idaho specifically for the purpose of getting her divorce from Rep. Vos (and the joke here would be ‘who could blame her!?’); maybe for ‘quickie’ divorce reasons, maybe taxes, who knows.
Now for voting purposes in WI, you can be absent from the state and still retain voting rights so long as you have an ‘intent to return’ to your WI place of ‘habitation’.
So my question for you – or more likely for any Idaho lawyers you might know – is what is the significance of establishing ‘residence’ in Idaho for purposes of a divorce? Does in involve swearing to an “intent to remain” or some such for some period of time? Or is Idaho the new place to go if you want a “quickie Reno divorce”, and ‘residency’ doesn’t really mean what we think it means?
Mrs Vos voted in the April ‘judicial/presidential primary’ election in person, the June recall by absentee, and the August ‘congressional’ primary in person (no vote in the May recall primary – we’ve had a lot of elections this year!). Voting in the June and August elections would certainly demonstrate an “intent to return” from the WI side of things.
Thanks.
How may more of these do we have to read before “major media” covers it? Them ragedy!
And really, really sorry to be OT again…but I just had an epiphany. Yinz know how old blow-your face-off really bugs me, well, I gotta knew name for him. Scared snarl dog, and this goes out to him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruDxyOebIQM
Hey Brad, did Bradblog ever create a single page listing all the known election fraud cases over the last several years? That would be an excellent resource for “major media” (as well as regular media and bloggers).
(I’m a relatively new reader. Thanks!)
Hey Brad, you need to kick it into gear covering the shenanigans already ongoing by Romney’s lieutenants to take control of the convention and deny Ron Paul supporters a voice even though it doesn’t officially kick off till Monday. Check it out:
GOP Tampa Shenanigans
Wow:
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/going-undercover-gops-voter-vigilante-project-disrupt-nov-election
“Going Undercover at the GOP’s Voter Vigilante Project to Disrupt the Nov. Election
“The Republican True the Vote project is a well-funded scheme with training sessions for activists across the country. Will it work?”
Last September, during the U.S. Senate hearings on GOP voter suppression, Judith Browne Dianis, a civil rights leader and co-director of the Advancement Project, warned us about the GOP voter vigilante project that Greg refers to @8 refers to.
She testified:
Progressive groups ought to seriously consider organizing poll watchers who are prepared to challenge the challengers.
As an example of what “challengers” at the polls might mean, here is the extent of who and what can be challenged in Wisconsin:
Any observer (or other voter or poll worker, for that matter) who is themself eligible to vote in WI can challenge the eligibility of another voter.
The person issuing a challenge is put under oath and asked a series of questions specified by the state agency that runs elections, with their answers written down. Then the voter is put under oath and is also asked a series of questions.
Then the voter is issued a regular ballot, marked to indicate that it is the ballot of that specific challenged voter (meaning the ‘secret’ of their secret ballot is lost), the voter casts their ballot, and it is counted by the same (optic scan) mechanism that all the other ballot are counted.
The voter is NOT prevented from voting, and their ballot is not ‘provisional’, at least not in the sense it might be in other states. (Provisionals are used in very limited and specific circumstances in WI.)
Obviously, challenges would slow down the whole process, taking workers away from their other tasks, etc.
People like her and Ann Coulter and Mitt Romney are working hard to provide examples of Voter Fraud by actually committing it. That way they can’t say it doesn’t happen!
Arias chided @ 7:
I’ve been both speaking with Paul folks and keeping an eye on what the GOPers are up to there over the past several days. FWIW, what they’re doing (largely) is keeping what happened this year at the state conventions, when Paul folks were able to get their delegates selected, from ever happening again in the future. A national GOP takeover of the state party system, to keep insurgents like Paul from being able to win delegates via state conventions when state voters have voted for someone else at the primaries.
It’s definitely a “fuck you” to the Paul folks from the establishment GOP, though it doesn’t really effect what happened in this cycle. Plus, parties can pretty much do whatever they want to do. (So Paul supporters should keep that, and the other treatment they’ve received from the GOP this year, in mind if they wish to stay within that party.)
That said, Paul folks are understandably pissed about it and could cause trouble during the roll call nomination at the RNC. That’s one of the reasons the RNC moved it to Monday, before the networks would be doing live coverage — hoping to avoid any embarrassment. Hurricane Isaac seems to have screwed that plan up though. So, stay tuned…
@Brad:
Thanks for the update. Just was surprised you hadn’t made a main blog post of it. In that article I linked to it seemed this was the key takeaway paragraph. Bold is mine:
So it would seem the rules have already been changed for this year to screw over the Paul folks and deny them any voice even this cycle if the RNC just voted that they can just arbitrarily change the rules to whatever.
If it were a Dem, it would have been breaking news on Faux News.
The Religious Fundamentalist Party, formally known as the Reopublcan Party doesn’t care about voter fraud, we all know that…but they have sold the idea that requiring an ID is no biggie…most people don’t understand how difficult getting an ID is for some people and the RFP doesn’t want to make it easy for you to get one, either. The FRP is control by the Corporatists, and with the Theocrats are busy regulating my uterus and keeping me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, the Corportists I’ll be stealin our countries resources out from under their noses, which are turned to high in the sky looking towards “heaven”, ingnoring the hell on earth they have created.
Sorry, used a touch pad for that one and didn’t spell check before submitting…gotta recharge my keyboard!
I think the interesting thing about this is not the specifics about where this woman was a resident, but rather she probably had all the I.D. she would need to vote in any state even after the recent wave of new voter I.D. laws. She certainly had enough I.D. to vote in Wisconsin, so that nothing in the voter I.D. law would have prevented this fraud from happening.
Vos is certain there was vote fraud because the GOP fixed all the elections and there should have been no way Lehman won. So there had to be raud, see?