Manitowoc residents had several questions for Wisconsin’s Election Commission Administrator during her stop at the Manitowoc Public Library last week.
Questions for Meagan Wolfe included what happens when a person can’t vote when convicted of a crime to making sure college students weren’t voting on campus and at home.
One question of importance was how the WEC and election officials prevent non US citizens from voting.
Wolfe says anyone must prove to be a US citizen when they register to vote by checking a box saying they are, but if there’s reliable information that someone voted illegally, anyone should go to their local city clerk and law enforcement to report it.
Poll workers are also checking some very specific criteria like checking the name of the person’s ID to a poll book they use and if their picture looks like them.
“There are no other things that the poll worker is allowed to look at on that photo ID,” she explained. “For instance, address. Poll workers aren’t looking at the address on the photo ID. You prove your address when you register to vote with proof of residence, but the poll worker shouldn’t turn away an ID because it doesn’t have a correct address on it.”
She was also asked about a Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions surrounding unattended ballot drop boxes now being illegal to is the WEC talking about ranked-choice voting.
Wolfe says she doesn’t have an opinion on either because the commission is non-partisan, and whatever the state law is dictates what the WEC does.
She was also asked what is being done to make sure something like the Kimberly Zapata case doesn’t happen again.
Wolfe says there’s a lot to learn, noting, “We’re able to continue to expand on that training those types of monitorings of our systems to ensure that if somebody else did try to commit voter fraud and fraudulently request a ballot that it could be detected and that it could be brought to a successful prosecution.”
Zapata was found guilty two weeks ago of obtaining three absentee ballots for military members by using fake names and Social Security numbers and sending them to Rep.
Janel Brandtjen. Wolfe was brought to Manitowoc through the library and League of Women Voters Manitowoc County to give the presentation last week.
