The election is going to be a nail-biter. For many, it’s a fork in the road.
And now an incriminating report throws this swing state into question.
A damning report is sounding the alarm over a legal loophole that has allowed thousands of Wisconsinites to vote without showing a photo ID, as required by state law.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) released a report revealing that the number of voters registered as “indefinitely confined” has ballooned to over 144,000, marking a 116% increase since 2016.
The “indefinitely confined” status, intended for the disabled, elderly, or ill, became a hot-button issue in 2020 when Milwaukee and Madison encouraged residents to use the obscure law to bypass voter ID requirements during COVID restrictions.
In an election where President Biden narrowly edged out Trump by just under 21,000 votes, this loophole gained significant attention.
Normally, Wisconsin requires voters to present a government-issued photo ID to cast their ballots.
However, “indefinitely confined” voters can skip this step when registering, and they are automatically sent absentee ballots for all future elections until they declare they are no longer confined or fail to return a ballot.
Although the Wisconsin Supreme Court eventually clamped down on this practice, the damage was already done. The number of indefinitely confined voters skyrocketed from 67,000 in 2016 to a staggering 265,000 by 2020, representing 8% of the total votes cast that year.
Despite voter roll cleanups mandated by law, the number has only dropped to around 144,000 — still more than double the 2016 figure.
The report points out that five Democratic strongholds — Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Janesville — have the highest concentrations of indefinitely confined voters, all areas that heavily favored Biden in 2020.
Will Flanders, the report’s author, acknowledged that WILL has not found direct evidence of widespread fraud among those using this status. Yet, he emphasized that the loophole is troubling.
“We have a loophole here that lets people not have to show a photo ID,” Flanders said to the New York Post.
WILL’s concern is that the bloated indefinitely confined rolls could be exploited to question the integrity of election results, as seen in 2020.
One proposed fix is to require a doctor’s note or photo ID to qualify for the status, similar to policies in other states. A Republican-led effort to pass such legislation was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in 2022.
Although the Wisconsin Elections Commission stated that 78% of indefinitely confined voters had shown a photo ID at some point, that figure hasn’t been updated.
Most local clerks have complied with the law’s mandate to clean up voter rolls, but Madison has notably failed to respond to WILL’s open records request.
WILL estimates that there could still be as many as 38,000 indefinitely confined voters who no longer qualify under state law.
Flanders warned that municipalities not complying with voter roll cleanup requirements could face legal challenges.
“If a municipality is non-compliant with the legal requirements to remove individuals from the indefinitely confined list, then a voter from that community would need to file a complaint with WEC,” Flanders said. WILL also indicated it is open to working with individuals from non-compliant communities to address particularly egregious cases.
Stay tuned to the Conservative Column.
