Staff with the State Department of Justice will be fanning out to polling places around Wisconsin for today’s historic recall election. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen says the practice of sending assistant attorney generals and agents from the Division of Criminal Investigation to polling places is neither unique, nor new. “It’s something that we’ve not only done at every significant election throughout my tenure, but was done before my tenure as well.”
There will be seven teams in Milwaukee, two in Madison, and eight more in other locations. Van Hollen says the intent is really not to catch voter fraud. “This is for very different reasons,” he says. “We don’t intend to necessarily be catching voter fraud in the field, and without photo ID, it’s very difficult to even detect voter fraud, certainly to stop it on Election Day.”
More than anything, Van Hollen says it’s about making sure elections officials understand the law, and have someone to turn to of they have questions or need help with enforcement of the law. “Some people, in their zealousness for the election and the campaigning, tend to get too close to the polls with some of the things they do,” he says. “I think every case that we’ve ever had, they’d cease and desist as soon as they were informed.”
