(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s election managers are reminding everyone that non-citizens are not allowed to vote in the state. But the state’s Election Commission is stopping short of promising to work with the Trump Administration to make sure they don’t.
The Justice Department this week sent a letter to all 50 states that promises to prosecute any election manager who “who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s [voter list] or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability."
"An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation of [federal law], which makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure any person in the exercise of that person’s constitutional rights," the DOJ letter states. "We encourage you to contact us to discuss what steps your state should take to maintain clean voter lists as required by law."
Wisconsin Elections Commission chairman Don Millis said non-citizens cannot vote in Wisconsin, but also told the DOJ that the Elections Commission itself is not in charge of accepting ballots at Wisconsin's polling places, or maintaining local voter rolls.
"Other than in very limited circumstances, WEC has no authority to remove voters from Wisconsin’s Statewide Voter Registration List of active voters. Nevertheless, WEC is committed to assisting municipal clerks with identifying possible ineligible voters so that clerks can determine whether those voters should be removed from Wisconsin’s Statewide Voter Registration List of active voters," Millis wrote is a letter to the DOJ.
Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2024 that officially bans non-citizens from voting in the state.
There is not much of a history of non-citizen voting cases in the state. A recent review found just one case, from Chippewa Falls in 2016, where a non-citizen actually cast a ballot.
But Wisconsin's state law leaves the enforcement of the non-citizen law up to local election clerks.
Clerks are responsible for checking IDs, and making sure that ineligible voters don't vote.
But Wisconsin law also could allow immigrants and other temporary visitors to use their non-citizen IDs as a voter ID. There is nothing on those temporary or non-citizen IDs that say "not a citizen," or "not able to vote."
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