As many as 25,000 new voters may have marked themselves as 'indefinitely confined' to their homes in an effort to circumvent Wisconsin's Voter ID law, "The Dan O'Donnell Show" has learned. Multiple sources confirm that both the Republican Party of Wisconsin and President Trump's re-election campaign are investigating what may be thousands of instances of intentional misrepresentation on ballots.
Under Wisconsin law, a voter may mark him or herself as "indefinitely confined" if they are for an indefinite period of time confined to their homes "because of age, physical illness or infirmity or are disabled for an indefinite period." While it is certainly possibly that new voters--most of whom are typically those who have just turned 18--would be confined to their homes because of age, illness, or infirmity, that is not particularly likely.
"Indefinitely confined status shall not be used by electors simply as a means to avoid the photo ID requirement without regard to whether they are indefinitely confined because of age, physical illness, infirmity or disability," the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) notes on its website.
In March, Dane County Clerk Scott McDonnell and Milwaukee County George Christensen ignored state law and issued guidance to hundreds of thousands of voters to mark themselves as indefinitely confined to their homes because of Wisconsin's "Safer at Home" order. Obviously, hundreds of thousands of people were not actually indefinitely confined as they were still allowed under "Safer at Home" to work at jobs deemed essential and to shop at grocery stores, hardware stores, and even liquor stores.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court rebuked McDonnell's and Christensen's unlawful guidance and barred election officials from giving similar advice, but nearly 250,000 people--primarily in Wisconsin's two most heavily Democrat-leaning counties--are now listed as indefinitely confined. As the MacIver Institute noted shortly before Tuesday's election, that represents a 238 percent increase in the number of people claiming indefinite confinement in less than a year.
Strangely enough, temporarily suspending Wisconsin's Voter ID requirement was listed as the very first priority in Democratic Governor Tony Evers' COVID-19 relief proposal. Republicans in the State Legislature rejected that, but shortly afterwards McDonnell and Christensen issued their unlawful advice to simply use indefinite confinement as a way of getting around Wisconsin's Voter ID law. Almost as soon as they did, Evers publicly called for every registered voter in the state to receive a mail-in ballot.
Republicans are now investigating massive numbers of people who suddenly claimed indefinite confinement, especially what sources say is an inordinate number of first-time voters who did.