Tens of thousands of people in Wisconsin falsely claimed to be “indefinitely incapacitated” in order to vote by absentee ballot, and their votes were counted,” a Republican witness alleged during a legislative hearing on election fraud, Friday.
Additionally, scores of developmentally disabled adults in Milwaukee, Wisconsin were forced by nursing home staffers to vote for Biden, according to the witness, who has been investigating voter fraud in the state.
About 20 witnesses appeared before the Wisconsin Joint Committee on Campaigns and Elections to testify on election irregularities in Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election.
Dan O’Donnell a University of Wisconsin Law School graduate, talk show host, and investigative journalist, shared allegations of disgraceful fraud involving the developmentally disabled during the hearing.
“The disturbing truth that I have discovered over the past year of investigating is that here in Wisconsin, our right to vote has been perverted by fraud allowed to run so rampant,” O’Donnell said, adding that the most vulnerable among us are having their right to vote stolen from them by “the very people we trust to administer our elections.”
He said a disabilities service coordinator who works with severely developmentally disabled adults in Milwaukee, contacted him after all of her clients told her they were pressured to vote for Joe Biden.
O’Donnell called the whistleblower “Susan,” explaining that she was afraid to go forward publicly out of fear of retribution.
“Every single one of her more than 20 clients told her that they were either pressured to vote for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, or had a vote cast for Biden in their name,” he told the Wisconsin lawmakers.
“O’Donnell explained that because of Covid-19 restrictions, Susan has been unable to visit her clients in their homes, so she has regular Zoom calls with them. That’s allegedly how she found out about the fraud. O’Donnell said she told him that one man even told her that he was handed a ballot that was already filled out.
“Another woman, whom Susan lovingly called a born contrarian who loves the Chicago Bears because everyone else loves the Packers, said she wanted to vote for Trump primarily because every one of the staff members at her home likes Biden,” O’Donnell continued.
Susan, according to O’Donnell, said the woman told her that she really wanted to vote for Trump, but a nursing home staff member told her, “no-no, he’s a bad man, we’re voting for Biden.”
“The staff member instructed her to vote for Biden, and so she did, but she wasn’t happy about it,” O’Donnell continued. “None of us should be happy about this.”
A nursing home resident said she wanted to vote for @realDonaldTrump.
But a nursing home staff member said "No no. He's a bad man. We're voting for Biden," and instructed the resident to do so against her wishes. pic.twitter.com/XqJbr5IO8s
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) December 11, 2020
The journalist noted that the theft of votes from cognitively impaired seniors in assisted living facilities and nursing homes is rampant throughout the state.
“Those caregivers have betrayed their trust,” O’Donnell said. “and this has happened over and over and over again here in Wisconsin.”
“The law is so disregarded and the rules put in place are so lax that even the dead are now being allowed to vote.
O’Donnell cited a woman he called Janet who told him about her 95-year-old mother [Ethel] who passed away in a nursing home in October after a long battle with dementia.
He said that not only did she allegedly vote from that nursing home after she died, she had apparently been voting from there for many years, even though she had been mentally incompetent since at least 2012.
“Janet” filed a police report, O’Donnell said, and under penalty of obstruction of justice, she provided a sworn statement in which she stated, “mom could sometimes not recognize me, remember when her last meal was, or even what day it was, yet she voted [for Joe Biden]. And even though [she] died in October, even though it is illegal for a deceased person’s vote to count in this state, Ethel’s vote was counted.”
“Janet” said in her statement that she inquired who had requested a ballot for her mother, and who had access to her to assist in filling out the ballot, as she had not been able to visit her mother for months, and she never received an answer.
“The answer lies sadly in the unconscionable manner in which the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), the very board that this state trusts to fairly and impartially administer elections ignored the clear letter of the state law and allowed vote fraud like this less a possibility than an inevitability,” O’Donnell argued, going on to cite several other cases in which votes were stolen from elderly, incapacitated patients.
Ladies and gentlemen, for more than a month now I have been investigating shockingly similar stories of vote fraud targeting the most vulnerable among us: A 102 year-old woman who suffered a stroke six years ago and doesn’t recognize her own children yet has been voting absentee in every single election, a 101 year-old man who is so far gone that his daughter told me “I want to know who’s voting for him because there’s no way he can vote on his own,” a 95 year-old woman who could no longer form complete sentences, no longer hold a pencil to fill out a ballot, but who somehow filled out a ballot on October 12th while in hospice, two days before she died.
Yes, her vote was illegally counted, too.
“Time and time again, often using the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse,” he explained, “the WEC simply replaced the law in 2020 with its own disastrous guidelines.”
Those guidelines included allowing nursing home staffers to fill out ballots for residents, instead of independent deputies.
“Unsurprisingly, this power was abused,” O’Donnell said.
The statute makes clear that “no individual who is employed or retained, or within the two years preceding appointment has been employed or retained, at a qualified retirement home or residential care facility in the municipality, or any member of the individual’s immediate family…may be appointed to serve as a deputy.”
O’Donnell went on to allege that tens of thousands of votes from people who claimed to be “indefinitely confined” may have also committed voter fraud in the election.
On March 25th, just days before Wisconsin’s Presidential Primary, both Dane County Clerk Scott McDonnell and Milwaukee County Clerk George Christianson issued guidance that because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and Governor Tony Evers’ “Safer at Home” emergency order, all voters were confined to their home and could claim indefinite confinement regardless of whether they themselves were actually “indefinitely confined because of age, physical illness…infirmity” or “physical disability.”
Wisconsin Statute 6.86(2) allows voters to list themselves as “indefinitely confined because of age, physical illness or infirmity” or if they are “disabled for an indefinite period.” This allows them to have absentee ballots automatically sent to them without having to fill out separate ballot request forms.
Also, crucially, it allows them to bypass Wisconsin’s Voter ID law.
As the statute provides, a voter may, “in lieu of providing proof of identification, submit with his or her absentee ballot a statement signed by the same individual who witnesses voting of the ballot which contains the name and address of the elector and verifies that the name and address are correct.”
This advice was so patently absurd and so unlawful that the Wisconsin Supreme Court actually took the highly unusual step of intervening to rule that McDonnell’s and Christianson’s “advice was legally incorrect” and potentially dangerous because “voters may be misled to exercise their right to vote in ways that are inconsistent with Wis. Stat. 6.86(2).”
The damage was already done, and immediately after McDonnell and Christianson issued their unlawful advice, the number of indefinitely confined voters ballooned from 72,000 to 200,000. Ahead of November’s Presidential Election, an additional 49,000 voters marked themselves as indefinitely confined.
Tens of thousands of them weren’t actually indefinitely confined.
They attended jazz concerts, parties, and weddings, went to work, and even traveled out of state. One woman I investigated even has a Facebook profile picture that includes the phrase “I cannot stay home, I’m a nurse.”
One woman claimed indefinite confinement but posted videos of her wedding on July 13th. Another posted a picture of herself and her boyfriend at Devil’s Lake State Park. Another posted in early August about visiting Hobby Lobby and going to church with others.
She posted: “Life is better together!”
One man visited “Vern’s cabin” in September. Another posted a picture of himself on a bike ride in October. A woman attended a party that same month. How do I know? I was at that same party. She was and is most certainly not indefinitely confined.
Each one of these voters may have committed election fraud, which under Wisconsin Statute 12.13 can involve making “false statements to the municipal clerk, board of election commissioners, or any other election official whether or not under oath.”
“Why were these clerks encouraging it?” O’Donnell asked.
The talk show host said his motive wasn’t to “challenge the results of the election or any election, but to challenge the systematic erosion of the Rule of Law.”
“We’re here because we won’t tolerate the rule of law being ignored, subverted, and trampled on,” he said.
“We’re here because this should concern all of us—Republicans, Democrats, Wisconsinites, Americans alike. We are here because these issues are far bigger than any one election, any one political party, or any one of us. And we are here because we know it.”
Entire hearing below: