Joseph and his sisters are livid. Their 102-year-old mother has suffered from dementia after a stroke six years ago and barely recognizes them.
"My sister will walk into her room and Mom will say 'Hi, who's your friend?' It's my other sister. She doesn't recognize her own daughter," Joseph explains.
The family moved their mother, Alice, to a nursing home in the Milwaukee suburbs following her stroke. Even though she has been wholly unable to take care of herself and, according to Joseph, could not possibly understand what is going on in politics, Alice registered to receive absentee ballots at her home in perpetuity and has been voting consistently ever since, including in this month's presidential election.
"There's just no way she can vote," says Joseph (which, like "Alice," is a pseudonym used to protect their identities because Joseph fears reprisal for coming forward). "How the hell has she been voting?"
She has, in fact, voted in both presidential elections and presidential primaries since her stroke and has also voted in the 2017 spring election and 2018 gubernatorial primary and general elections. In each election, Alice voted absentee by mail.
The story resonates with Rebecca, whose 101-year-old father-in-law Harvey also suffers from memory issues and is also legally incapacitated yet still voted in the presidential election from his assisted living facility in a medium-sized community in central Wisconsin. She too wonders how Harvey could have possibly voted.
"He can't vote, he shouldn't vote, but he's still voting," she says. "That's just wrong."
According to MyVote, Wisconsin's online voter database, Harvey (also a pseudonym used to protect the family's identity) somehow requested an absentee ballot on October 2, filled it out and returned it a few days later. It was received on October 8.
Harvey also voted absentee by mail at his nursing home in the 2018 spring election as well as the 2018 gubernatorial general election.
"I want to know who was voting for him because he wasn't voting on his own," Rebecca says.
Harvey and Alice are two of a growing number of nursing home and assisted living facility residents who have either been coerced into voting or had their votes stolen from them in Wisconsin.
Earlier this week, a disability service coordinator in the Milwaukee area told "The Dan O'Donnell Show" that each one of her more than 20 clients voted for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, including some who did not want to and others who reported that a staff member presented them with their ballot already marked for Biden.
"If it happened to all of them, it's happening to a lot of people--the sort of people who we should be protecting and instead they're just being used to steal their votes," the coordinator said. "It's just heartbreaking."
Joseph echoed that sentiment, as he is both angry and saddened that someone might use his mother in a vote fraud scheme.
"It's just disgusting," he said. "I can't believe this is happening."