Judicial Watch Sends Election Monitors to Wisconsin, Launches National Voter Fraud Hotline

With the race for the presidency hurtling to the finish line, Judicial Watch will dispatch an election integrity team to Wisconsin to help ensure free and fair elections. Wisconsin is a critical swing state with a history of tumultuous electoral contests. “Judicial Watch’s teams will monitor the election in Wisconsin to expose and deter any fraud,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Improper or illegal election activities are also the focus of Judicial Watch’s new Election Integrity Hotline. Voters who witness fraud or intimidation, or suspicious activities at polling places or with voting machines, can send details to JW election experts at [email protected].

Judicial Watch has long been a national leader in ensuring election integrity and voting rights. Judicial Watch’s election integrity team is led by Robert Popper, the former deputy chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a veteran poll observer.

“Voter fraud in one form or another is a feature of very election,” Popper says. “It can be impersonation fraud, absentee ballot fraud, registration fraud, double voting, noncitizen voting, or voting by those ineligible under state law. It’s hard to detect and prove, especially where the law requires a showing of specific intent, but we know it is there. And sometimes fraud can swing a close election. Clean elections are a critical component of an effectively functioning democracy. Dirty elections undermine confidence in the democratic system.”

A key weapon in the fight to keep elections free and fair is the National Voter Registration Act, which mandates that states to make “a reasonable effort” to remove from voting rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have been disqualified from voting due to death or change of residence. States often dodge this responsibility, creating opportunities for election fraud.

Legal pressure from Judicial Watch under the NVRA has led to the removal from voter rolls of more than four million ineligible voters nationwide. JW has spearheaded major voter roll cleanups in California, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky, Colorado, and elsewhere. Cleaner voter rolls mean cleaner elections. You can learn more about JW’s voter roll cleanups here.

Judicial Watch fights on other legal fronts as well. In 2022, we defeated a highly partisan Maryland redistricting plan initiated by Democrats in the state legislature. Last year, we compelled Illinois to provide more transparency in its state-wide centralized list of registered voters. And earlier his month, we won a major victory when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a lower court ruling allowing absentee ballots to be received up to five days after Election Day in Mississippi.

“Congress statutorily designated a singular ‘day for the election’ of members of Congress and the appointment of presidential electors,” the Fifth Circuit noted in its ruling. “Text, precedent, and historical practice confirm this ‘day for the election’ is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials.”

Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton hailed the ruling. “This is a historic victory for election integrity and voter rights and confidence,” Tom said. “This is a precedent that ensures that only ballots that arrive by Election Day can be counted under federal law. We hope this begins a national movement to increase voter confidence, comply with federal law, and limit voter fraud by counting ballots that arrive only by Election Day.”

#

Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for Judicial Watch. Tips: [email protected]

Investigative Bulletin is published by Judicial Watch. Reprints and media inquiries: [email protected]