A key Republican partisan, Tea Party and talk radio mantra is that there’s this huge problem with voter fraud benefiting the Democrats, a nice sounding argument and great charge to scream at Democrats, independents, neutral journalists and academics who say it’s simply not true. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul bluntly took his party to task for its obsession with voter ID, until he got backlash and he tried to walk it back. Even a can of Friskees catfood on the shelf at Vons Grocery in Rancho Penasquitos, CA hears the charge and says “Baloney,” and the Kitty Litter would agree.
But now we have a high-profile case of voter fraud. Only it’s from a supporter of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Brown –– a Republican.
Robert Monroe, a 50-year-old Shorewood health insurance executive, was charged Friday with 13 felonies related to his voting a dozen times in five elections between 2011 and 2012 using his own name as well as that of his son and his girlfriend’s son.
“During 2011 and 2012, the defendant, Robert Monroe, became especially focused upon political issues and causes, including especially the recall elections,” the complaint asserts in its introduction.
WisPolitics.com reported the investigation into Monroe’s multiple voting last week after Milwaukee County Judge J.D. Watts ordered the records related to a secret John Doe investigation be made public after the investigation was closed.
According to those records, Monroe was considered by investigators to be the most prolific multiple voter in memory. He was a supporter of Gov. Scott Walker and state Sen. Alberta Darling, both Republicans, and allegedly cast five ballots in the June 2012 election in which Walker survived a recall challenge.
But he had a logical explanation for it:
According to the John Doe records, Monroe claimed to have a form of temporary amnesia and did not recall the election day events when confronted by investigators.
Who wouldn’t believe that?
Monroe voted in his own name, using his Shorewood address, as well as that of a home owned by his parents in Milwaukee. He also voted in the 2012 presidential election from Shorewood and then drove to Lebanon, Ind., where he voted again. He also owns a home there. This double voting allegedly occurred after he was made aware of a double-voting investigation involving his son.
The investigation was initiated after authorities in Waukesha found that Monroe’s son, Benjamin, had voted in person in Waukesha in the June 2012 recall election where he lives with his mother, Robert Monroe’s ex-wife. An absentee ballot for Benjamin was also cast for Benjamin using the Shorewood address of his father.
Also in the June 2012 recall, an absentee ballot was cast using the name Grant Mueller, son of Robert Monroe’s girlfriend, using the Shorewood address. Initially, Grant Mueller denied casting the absentee ballot later but changed his statement, saying the signature on the absentee ballot was his. He told investigators “that Monroe was more like a father to him than his biological father.” The state crime lab tested the envelope that sealed the absentee ballots and found Robert Monroe’s saliva, according to the complaint.
He’s the living embodiment of the old joke about a voter who met a candidate after an election and says, “I voted for you! Five times!”
Monroe is an insurance executive. I’m sure the GOP mantra to repeal Obamacare had absolutely nothing to do with his “focus” upon political issues and causes. And boy howdy, was he ever focused. So focused, in fact, that he just forgot he stuffed the ballot box.
Hallelujah!!!! Republicans have found their voter fraud. Unfortunately for them, they are the ones committing it. The Monroe case is even worse, because he voted multiple times in the April 2011 Wisconsin Supreme Court race that required a recount. This isn’t the first episode of Republican voter fraud in the state. In 2011, a Republican legislative aide was investigated for voting multiple times.
The greatest irony of all is that the Monroe case exposes why voter ID laws don’t do what Republicans claim they do. Since Republicans benefit most from absentee voting, they have refused to address the glaring potential for fraud by absentee ballot. The Republican in Wisconsin was able to commit multiple acts of state and federal voter fraud by using absentee ballots for state elections, and driving across state lines for federal elections.
Republican voter ID laws address none of these issues, and instead focus on suppressing the vote by requiring voters who are more likely to vote for Democrats to show identification. A person is least likely to have identification if they are living in the city, and don’t drive. Voter ID laws are being used to suppress the votes of women by making strict rules about acceptable names on the identification.
Washington Monthly’s Ed Kilgore:
If you want to see some actual voter fraud, perhaps you should forget about Mississippi and look at a documented case in Wisconsin…Was Monroe perhaps an Alinsky disciple operating under secret instructions from ACORN? No.
For all the noise people make to keep blacks and poors away from a voting booth, voter impersonation fraud is an incredibly dumb crime. If the person you impersonated tries to vote in the same election, you’re busted. If they knowingly let you vote for them it seems likely that they would have voted the same way. If you vote in more than one precinct you will get flagged in the first half-assed check of that year’s voting records.
So let’s all applaud Robert D. Monroe of Wisconsin, supporter of Scott Walker and criminal mastermind. Investigators “considered [him] to be the most prolific multiple voter in memory”. Monroe earned his kingpin status with a grand total of eight extra votes in five elections.
You have to see this as an inevitable side effect of those drugs that FOX puts in the kool-aid. Some folks genuinely believe that new black panthers use obamaphones to co-ordinate buses full of vote fraudsters from out of state (actual allegations). If those people get away with it then maybe everyone should try voting twice.
Note the references to black voters. The reason: this news comes against the backdrop of a controversy brewing this election day in Mississippi. The Week’s Jon Turbesh:
Seeking to combat Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-Miss.) pleas for Democrats to back him in Tuesday’s GOP primary runoff, a collection of Tea Party groups are bringing in poll watchers to supposedly ensure no voters break the law.
The Senate Conservatives Fund, FreedomWorks, and Tea Party Patriots will send “trained” observers to polling places in areas where Cochran has been recruiting Democrats, according to The New York Times. Cochran finished second in the initial primary voting to state Sen. Chris McDaniel, and has since enlisted black pastors to help him get out the Democratic vote.
The groups behind the monitoring claim that a little-known law makes it illegal for people to vote in the GOP primary if they don’t intend to support the party in November. The legal case for that reading is flimsy.
The U.S. Justice Department says it’s keeping a close eye on a plan by conservatives to send poll-watchers to Mississippi for the state’s U.S. Senate race Tuesday—a “voter integrity” project that’s sparking fears of intimidation and racial profiling. And now, Mississippi’s attorney general and secretary of state are chiming in, too.
“The department is aware of concerns about voter intimidation and is monitoring the situation,” a Justice Department spokesperson told msnbc. “Voters that experience problems are encouraged to call 1-800-253-3931.”
An array of conservative groups supporting Chris McDaniel, including the Senate Conservatives Fund, the Tea Party Patriots, and True the Vote have said they’re sending poll-watchers to the state amid reports that some Mississippi Democratic operatives are working to turn out black Democrats in support of McDaniel’s opponent, Sen. Thad Cochran. The poll-watching effort is being organized in part by Christian Adams, a former Bush Justice Department lawyer who has long sought to publicize claims of voter fraud and illegal voting.
“The laws in Mississippi are unusually open to poll watching from the outside,” Ken Cuccinelli, the head of the Senate Conservatives Fund, told The New YorkTimes. “We’re going to take full advantage of that and we’re going to lay eyes on Cochran’s effort to bring Democrats in…And of course, if they voted in primaries, that’s illegal.”
The state’s primaries are open to voters regardless of party affiliation. But Adams and his allies cite a Mississippi law that bars people from voting for a primary candidate they don’t plan to support in the general election.
Meanwhile, Mississippi’s attorney general and secretary of state issued a press release Monday, saying outside groups have no authority to send poll watchers to monitor state elections.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.