WI Lawmakers Call For Records To Check Noncitizen Voting

Wisconsin lawmakers are again asking the state Department of Transportation to turn over information on the tens of thousands of foreign nationals holding driver’s licenses and state-issued ID cards — records that would help check the possibility of noncitizens voting in  Wisconsin elections. 

The latest request follows a lawsuit first reported by The Federalist that demands the DOT and the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) do their jobs and use the data to stave off voter fraud in a swing state that will again play a crucial role in deciding a presidential election. 

Failure to Communicate 

In a letter to Kristina Boardman, incoming secretary of the Wisconsin DOT, the chairmen of the state legislature’s elections committees “humbly” but sternly request that the agency “share all information in its possession” on noncitizens holding DOT-issued Wisconsin licenses and state identification cards with the oversight panels. The lawmakers also request the information be shared with “other state agencies and entities (including the Wisconsin Elections Commission), in furtherance of our oversight of elections and ensuring that elections are being administered in accordance with the law.” 

“I know your agency has electronic information that shows the names of the permanent non-citizen residents of Wisconsin who have received ID cards or drivers’ licenses from your agency,” wrote Sen. Dan Knodl, R-Germantown, chairman of the Senate Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections and Consumer Protection, and Rep. Scott Krug, R-Nekoosa, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections. 

The chairmen know that the DOT has the information because Boardman told them as much at a joint committee hearing in May. Boardman, deputy secretary set to succeed DOT Secretary Craig Thompson after he leaves the agency on Sept. 11, testified at the hearing that 72,315 — 2 percent — of Wisconsin’s 3.6 million-plus driver’s licenses on record were permanent residents/noncitizens, according to the lawmakers’ letter. Another 17,178  — 4 percent — of state identification cards were issued to permanent residents/noncitizens. 

In total, since 2019, the  Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles has “issued more than 258,000 driver’s licenses and 41,000 photo ID cards to non-citizens,” the agency told PBS Wisconsin.

Boardman told committee members the DOT does not share the data — specifically who’s on the list — with the Elections Commission. 

Knodl and Krug say such failure to communicate must stop. 

“I write today to ask, again, that you and your agency share this information with the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, as well with the Senate Committee on Shared Revenue, Elections and Consumer Protection, so that our two committees may properly and fully conduct the oversight duties we are tasked with,” the letter states.  

As a convincer, the lawmakers point to state statute which spells out that state agencies must cooperate with the legislature in the course of its duties. 

‘Ineligible’ 

The lawsuit filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court alleges WEC and Transportation have failed to match “DOT’s citizenship information against [voter] registrant information in the WisVote list,” the state’s voter registration database. Doing so is critical in verifying the accuracy of the citizenship information provided by applicants on — or coming onto — the voter rolls, the lawsuit asserts.  

Thompson, the outgoing DOT secretary, insists the information is private. In a July 16 letter to the chairman, Thompson wrote that WEC and DOT’s current matching program outlined in state statute is “statutorily limited to the personally identifiable information on the official registration list under the Help America Vote Act.” 

“… Citizenship information is not included in this list, so it is ineligible for the matching program and not a part of the current agreement,” Thompson wrote, insisting his hands are legally tied. 

“Absent statutory authority to verify citizenship data via the online registration system, WisDOT cannot share this information,” the secretary wrote. 

He also claimed “DOT driver record information is subject to the federal Driver Privacy and Protection Act (DPPA),” and that releasing such information could land the agency and its bureaucrats in trouble. 

The lawsuit asserts Thompson’s privacy claim is a misreading of the law. 

The complaint argues that Thompson’s letter ignores the U.S. Code, which states that the term “‘person’ … does not include a State or agency thereof.” In short, people may not be able to turn over private information, but government agencies may share such information with each other. Another federal code on “Permissible Uses” states that “Personal information … may be disclosed … (1) For use by any government agency … in carrying out its functions. …”

Knodl and Krug note as much in their letter. They write that their data request is in compliance with the DPPA because it has been “made on behalf of the below mentioned committees in relation to carry out their respective functions.” 

‘I Do Not Object’

Senate Bill 98 would have required the DOT to share information with the Elections Commission “to verify that individuals on the official voter registration list are U.S. citizens.” The bill also would have required the DOT to place a Disclaimer on the licenses and IDs of foreign nationals that the cards are “Not Valid for Voting Purposes”  or some comparable indicator.

Far-left Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill because he objected to “requiring state-issued identification cards to have a ‘recognizable indication’ that could result in certain individuals being treated differently or unfairly in every day, non-electoral situations …” 

“While I do not object to the data-sharing of citizenship information between the Department of Transportation and the Elections Commission, this cooperation could be accomplished without potentially causing certain individuals to be treated unfairly or perpetuating false narratives about our elections,” the leftist governor wrote in the veto message. Senate Republicans used their supermajority to override Evers’ veto. Democrats voted against stopping the governor’s veto. The Republican-controlled Assembly, which does not hold a supermajority, did not take up the veto vote before the spring session ended. The veto survived. 

The lawsuit argues there already are laws on the books that grants the DOT the ability to share the verification data with elections officials — and legislative committees that seek it.

“We’re asking them to follow the law,” Knodl told me Tuesday in an interview. “It is imperative we have this information so we can work with local clerks to give them the confidence they need to so that they can verify who is a citizen and who isn’t.”

‘We Are Going to Prosecute’

As the state senator noted, noncitizens voting in Wisconsin elections isn’t unheard of. Most recently, Ozaukee County prosecutors charged a Ukrainian woman late last year with election fraud after she voted in a local school board election. The woman admitted to the crime but claimed she didn’t understand the forms, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, allowing her case to be dismissed in four years if she has no further trouble with the law. 

Knodl said he believes there are more cases of noncitizens voting in Wisconsin elections but district attorneys have often refused to follow through. 

“It’s up to each DA on whether to press charges,” he said. “We need the DAs to say, ‘Yes, in fact we are going to prosecute violations of these election laws by individuals fraudulently casting ballots and anyone else not doing proper procedures.’” 

Knodl said he is “100 percent confident” that some noncitizens will obtain a ballot. 

‘Unlawfully Included’

The Wisconsin Elections Commission has admitted that “illegal registrants” are on the state’s voter rolls. Wisconsin has had trouble keeping its voter list clean. A DOT official testified that over the past decade the DMV has issued more than 11,000 free voter IDs. The department canceled 53 applications because of fraud or ineligibility, with 23 of those cases referred to law enforcement. In nine fraud cases, “a voting receipt was actually issued before DMV canceled the application,” the lawsuit states. 

Extrapolating the DMV numbers, the lawsuit includes conservative estimates that there were more than 10,000 registrants “unlawfully included in the WisVote list” over the past decade.  

Knodl is anything but confident that WEC, which has routinely been accused of breaking state election law, will adhere to statute this election season. And the senator said the DOT “will continue to stall” the release of the noncitizen data. 

Meanwhile, the lawsuit looks to be slowed by procedural moves. On Tuesday, attorneys for WEC and the DOT filed a request for a judicial substitution, which was granted, according to court records. That process will extend the case calendar, as will motions to intervene by leftist groups Voces De La Frontera and Forward Latino.  

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.