Couple Charged With Voting Twice
Just one name… two names, actually.
A rural McFarland couple were charged Monday with voting twice in last spring’s general election — once each in Dane and Columbia counties.
Louis and Janice Kwiatkowski, both 66, are charged with felony election fraud for allegedly casting absentee ballots on April 2 in the village of Wyocena in Columbia County, then voting in person in the town of Blooming Grove five days later.
According to a criminal complaint, Louis Kwiatkowski initially denied having voted twice, telling Columbia County sheriff’s Detective Jay Yerges that he had only voted absentee in Wyocena. He emphatically denied voting elsewhere on the day of the election and said he believed that he and his wife were in Milwaukee that day.
Shown a copy of the poll record from the town of Blooming Grove, he said he couldn’t say how that had happened. He eventually admitted, though, that he had voted in both counties, the complaint states.
“I live in both counties,” Louis Kwiatkowski told Yerges. “You want to affect what is going on in each county.”
Janice Kwiatkowski acknowledged that the couple had voted in both places because they were interested in issues in both areas, according to the complaint. She said they researched voting regulations and believed they could do it. She admitted having voted twice for some candidates in statewide races, the complaint states.
Evidently, they didn’t research the voting regulations very well. They should also charge them with lying to the police.
I suppose you’re also vigorously calling for an investigation into Ann Coulter’s voter fraud?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/08/ann-coulter-under-investi_n_165007.html
Posted by Robert on July 06, 2009 at 2206 hrs
Um, I live in Wisconsin. I’m a little more concerned with fraudulent votes that affect me. Heck, for all I know, this is a couple of conservatives.
But yes, if Coulter committed vote fraud then she should be prosecuted. Happy?
Geez, is it humanly possible for liberals to actually stay on point? It’s like arguing with children.
Posted by Owen on July 06, 2009 at 2210 hrs
When you got nothing - you try to draw attention away from that fact and try to bring up something else.
If they live in McFarland not likely they are conservatives.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 06, 2009 at 2236 hrs
The law’s the law, and certainly the lying shouldn’t be tolerated. But I get the sentiment he’s expressing. People, especially property owners, often have very real interests where their property is located, whether that’s a primary residence or not.
If there were a way to allow those folks to cast multiple ballots so long as they don’t vote more than once in any particular race, I could almost be convinced to go along with that. I’m not quite sure how the state could do that though without inspecting ballots prior to election day, and that’s not smart.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on July 06, 2009 at 2320 hrs
A real life example of why it is impossible to orchestrate an organized effort to tamper with elections in this manner.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 06, 2009 at 2322 hrs
RS makes a good point. When you own property in different counties or different states even, you are prevented from voting in races that will elect people who will levy your taxes, determine how services are or aren’t not provided to you and your property, and expend revenue generated from your tax dollars.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 06, 2009 at 2345 hrs
Gee, if we only had voter I.D.
Nah, that’s too logical.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 0735 hrs
RS/Lefty,
I’d be open to local ballots for property owners. The problem is that then we’d be basing the right to vote on the ownership of property. What if I’m staying with my grandma in another county for 5 months out of the year. I don’t own property, but I still have a vested interest in the goings on in the local community. Or what if I rent a cabin up nort’ year round?
If there was a way to make it work, I’d be open to it, but it’s hard to separate the vote from the person and tie it to something else - like property ownership.
Posted by Owen on July 07, 2009 at 0747 hrs
Kelly, perhaps you can explain to me how a voter ID law could have possibly prevented this. They could have easily shown ID in both polling locations, couldn’t they? In fact, carried to the logical extreme, they could have registered in counties across the state and gone from county to county, showing ID at every location.
Oops, did I introduce logic into the discussion?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 0853 hrs
APC- I sit corrected. Unlike liberals I can admit my error.
So since you are “logical” I take it you are for Voter I.D.?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 0916 hrs
APC,
And as soon as they rolled up the voting records for a state election, we could charge that person with 71 counts of voter fraud.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 0920 hrs
It would work if your ID had to match the district you were voting in. Hard to vote in Columbia County if your address is in Dane.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1014 hrs
To answer your question, Kelly, no. If there were any evidence at all to suggest that voter impersonation was even the slightest problem, I might be persuaded to get behind some form of voter ID.
Note that I said voter impersonation, not voter fraud. The idea that there’s some huge problem with people showing up at the polls and trying to pass themselves off as somebody else is just ridiculous.
Look at it this way: why should the state spend millions of tax dollars to furnish an ID for every voting age citizen? That’s what would have to happen with voter ID laws to keep them from running afoul of the 24th amendment. You’d be spending all that money for a non-existent problem. Practically all voter fraud has to do with absentee and mail ballots, and voter ID does nothing to address that.
Please don’t bring up the tired argument that a person needs an ID to rent a movie; renting a movie is not a constitutional right.
And Curt—good. Prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law on all 71 counts. Many people seem to conflate opposition to voter ID with being OK with voter fraud. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m not saying you’re implying that, just that it seems to be a common misperception.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1018 hrs
Good point, neomom.
Again though, if it could be proven that there was actually a problem with voter impersonation and voter fraud, I might find a way to get behind some form of voter ID, in spite of the huge costs of such a problem. And in addition to the considerable monetary costs, there’s the problem of possible disenfranchisement of huge numbers of voters, which hasn’t even entered this discussion.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1029 hrs
Wow APC really splitting hairs there aren’t ya?
“Look at it this way: why should the state spend millions of tax dollars to furnish an ID for every voting age citizen? -APC”
Most people all ready have a drivers license or state I.D., so it would be just a small percentage of the population. Besides, since when to liberals care about how much things cost?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1054 hrs
I’m not buying the huge “disenfranchisement” canard either. If there are disenfranchised voters, they are like me who are seeing their own votes become meaningless with crapola like this or the smokes-for-votes or the ACORN $..t and on and on.
How about having to go into the town/city hall and prove who you are and where you live to get an absentee ballot instead of letting non-profits and parties send them to you, requiring that you have to register to vote yourself and getting rid of the mass registration fraud, allowing the states to purge their roles of dead people, and both getting rid of early voting and having people dip their fingers in the purple ink so they can’t vote twice.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1104 hrs
Splitting hairs? How? I’m pointing out what would seem to be an argument that would appeal to conservatives, and liberals, too, believe it or not,—not spending tax dollars unwisely to address a “problem” that doesn’t exist. More accurately, a “problem” that the perceived solution won’t fix. The AG here in Texas spent several million dollars to seek out examples of voter fraud and came up with zip. It was kind of embarrassing, since his study was supposed to justify voter ID legislation.
neomom, Maybe y’all don’t have people living in retirement homes who would find it a hardship to simply “go to town/city hall” so they can exercise their constitutional right to vote. Maybe y’all don’t have lots of students who can’t go back to their hometown (where their official address is) to vote. Who, by the way, might want to vote on issues affecting the town where they live while attending school. I’m all for tightening registration issues when necessary, but I’m a voter registrar here in Texas, and it’s not that simple to register to vote. You have to prove who you are before you can register. Voter ID would add yet another layer of bureaucracy to the mix, something conservatives continually say they are against. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said “huge” numbers would be disenfranchised. I will say, though, that the number of people disenfranchised would be far greater by an order of magnitude than the number of people who are now allegedly fraudulently voting.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1127 hrs
apc,
Registering to vote is not that difficult. I’ve done it a few times as I’ve moved around. In my new home of NC, you do it at the DMV when you change the address on your license.
For the students, if they aren’t planning on establishing residency at their college town, they shouldn’t vote there. If they want to, they should change their address and establish residency. Ask the folks who reside permanently in the college towns if they really want a bunch of transient 18-22 year olds deciding the city policy when they have no real stake there. Campuses are also ripe for potential double-voting because it is so easy to vote in both their home towns, the college town. It is also easy to bring in a bunch of people who don’t live there just on the day of voting - see the issues that were had with early voting in Ohio last year. College students are resourceful, I’m sure they can figure it out.
I’m also quite sure that a solution can be found for the old folks in the retirement home. Like setting up a polling place there, or having real election officials deliver and secure ballots on location. As long as it isn’t like at the group home in CA where some non-profit brought in a stack of absentee ballots, registered a bunch of the developmentally disabled to vote and then told them which boxes to mark off. There were some families that were quite upset with that.
I don’t want people to not vote, I just want 1 vote for each eligible voter.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1223 hrs
I don’t want people to not vote, I just want 1 vote for each eligible voter.
I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t want people to vote. Sorry if I left that impression.
And I couldn’t agree more about 1 vote per voter. I think we may be at the point where we’re talking past each other, and that we actually agree on a lot of things. I simply don’t believe that voter ID legislation addresses any of the issues that we’re discussing here, that’s all.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1233 hrs
I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t want people to vote. Sorry if I left that impression
It was your “disenfranchisement of huge numbers” and “its not that simple to register to vote” statements. My apologies if I misunderstood you on those, but they are pretty much right out of the lefty playbook.
But I still think we should get rid of early voting and use the purple ink. I also, for the life of me can’t understand why we can’t get some sort of database where your name gets checked off when you vote. The government and credit card companies and track damned-near everything about you, but this they find too difficult.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1242 hrs
Hey, I am a lefty. What other playbook would you have me use?
And you’re absolutely right about the database and checkoff when voting. That seems to me to perhaps be the easiest way out of a lot of this. On the other hand, I like early voting, if nothing else, from a purely selfish point of view—I simply find it better to vote at my convenience and not have to worry about work and maybe illness-related issues.
The more I think about it, the more I like the purple finger idea, too. If for no other reason than to single out the non-voters, so they can be told to shut up when they complain about politics.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1538 hrs
If there was a way to make it work, I’d be open to it, but it’s hard to separate the vote from the person and tie it to something else - like property ownership.
But the vote is tied to something other than the person. You only get to vote in the city, county, town, village, state, country in which you reside. Your entire voting rights are restricted by, among other things, your physical residence. At issue isn’t whether you should be able to vote for the same office twice, but whether you should be able to vote for each individual office that you have a direct and tangible stake in.
Your example certainly brings up questions that I don’t have answers to, but lets start smaller. What are the valid arguments for and against being able to vote in elections for governmental bodies in each place in which you own property?
I think the against really boils down to whether people with more property, in many cases then people with more money, will see a marked over representation of their view points because they can elect people to multiple boards and councils. I’m not so sure that is a really strong argument.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 07, 2009 at 1641 hrs
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