Wisconsin
Man charged with fraud, ID theft in ballot case
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Prosecutors charged a Wisconsin man Thursday with election fraud and identity theft after he acknowledged that he fraudulently requested absentee ballots in what he says was an effort to expose vulnerabilities in the state’s election system.
The state Department of Justice charged 68-year-old Harry Wait with two misdemeanor counts of election fraud and two felony counts of identity theft. He would face up to 13 years behind bars if convicted on all four counts.
Wait told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that he wasn’t surprised he was charged.
“You got to expect to pay some costs sometimes when you are trying to work for the public good,” he said. “You can’t always stay in the safe zone.”
The charges mark another bizarre chapter in a seemingly endless fight over election administration in Wisconsin, a key battleground state as the 2024 presidential election approaches.
The battle began after Joe Biden won the state in 2020, defeating former President Donald Trump by nearly 21,000 votes. Trump has refused to accept the loss, insisting the election was marred by fraud. Multiple reviews and court decisions have upheld Biden’s victory, but Trump’s supporters have spent the months since promoting his baseless claims that Biden somehow stole the election.
Wait publicly acknowledged in July that he visited the state’s MyVote Wisconsin website and ordered absentee ballots in the name of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Racine Mayor Cory Mason and several other people by entering their personal information. He said he asked that the ballots be delivered to his home.
He said he then told Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling about what he’d done and said he was trying to show the site is vulnerable to fraud.
According to a criminal complaint, the Wisconsin Elections Commission notified the state Justice Department on July 28 of eight possibly fraudulent absentee ballot requests made through MyVote Wisconsin. Investigators discovered a letter that Harry Wait posted on the H.O.T. Government website. The group promotes honest, open and transparent government; Wait is the group’s president.
Wait said in the letter that he had gone online and successfully ordered ballots in the name of at least two other people and had the ballots shipped to his address. The complaint identified those people only as Individual 1 and Individual 2.
Wait went on to say he had obtained permission from others around the state to pose as them and order their ballots shipped to his address.
“I stand ready to be charged for exposing these voting vulnerabilities when I ordered (Individual 2)’s and (Individual 1)’s absentee ballot online,” Wait wrote, according to the complaint.
Investigators also found a video of a July 28 podcast in which Wait admitted that he had ordered ballots for both people to be sent to his address as well as ballots for others with their permission. He said he expected to be arrested and called for others to request absentee ballots in others’ names and have them sent to state officials.
Justice Department agents interviewed Wait on Aug. 24, according to the complaint. He told them that he requested the ballots for individual 1 and 2 on July 26 while he was at the H.O.T. Government booth at the Racine County Fair and did not have their permission. He said he knew he was committing a crime and would do it again, according to the complaint.
Wait is due to make an initial court appearance on Sept. 8.
New Mexico
State judiciary endorses elimination of some court fees
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s judiciary has endorsed the elimination of court fees for traffic violations and some misdemeanor criminal cases that can have a disproportionate effect on the poor, a top court administrator announced Thursday.
Jason Clack, a division director for the Administrative Office of the Courts, told a panel of legislators that the endorsement is contingent upon replacing fee income with taxpayer dollars from the state general fund.
The Legislature is likely to consider the budget proposal and companion statutory changes when it meets in January 2023.
“The courts here are saying that there is a problem that they are ready to fix,” said Democratic state Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena of Mesilla, who plans to sponsor a bill to rein in court fees.
The new proposal, endorsed by the state Supreme Court in August, would not affect court fines applied by judges as punishment, and municipal courts could continue to collect fees on enforcement of local ordinances.
State courts collect roughly $16 million each year in fees on traffic and misdemeanor cases to sustain an array of programs include juries, magistrate pensions, an Albuquerque crime lab and support services for people with brain injuries.
The judiciary’s proposal would sustain those programs by diverting money from the state general fund amid a multibillion-dollar annual state budget surplus.
Critics of the current fee system say it’s an inefficient way to fund government programs and has a disproportionate impact on impoverished residents that can deprive them of crucial income and prompt or prolong incarceration.
In New Mexico, unpaid fees are met with some leniency, triggering an assessment of defendants’ ability to pay. That can lead to debt forgiveness, community service requirements, or jail time that provides a roughly $100 credit per day against court debts.
But ignored court hearings and debts lead to bench warrants more than 25,000 times a year statewide, coupled with additional fees.
“Fees are not supposed to be punitive,” Cynthia Pacheco, a program manager for the Administrative Office of the Courts, told legislators. “Under the current system, we’ve started to think of the fees as the punishment.”
Since 2019, a variety of court fees have been eliminated in states including Michigan, Mississippi, Wisconsin and California, along with cities from New York to Portland.
The trend can be traced to intense scrutiny of courts and policing in Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of the August 2014 fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed Black man, by a white city police officer.
The U.S. Department of Justice found that Ferguson was using its municipal police and court system to generate revenue, largely on the backs of poor and Black people.
In 2021, New Mexico lawmakers eliminated the assessment of court fines and fees against juvenile defendants.
