Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, spoke with Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren on Monday about maintaining integrity in the voting process when people go to cast their votes today during Wisconsin’s gubernatorial recall.
“It’s real stuff. It’s felons voting. It’s people voting twice. Things along those lines. Wisconsin’s voting laws are so liberal…it’s very easy to potentially commit fraud and get away with it if you want to,” said AG Van Hollen when asked how serious the voter fraud issue was in Wisconsin.
“So you’re not going to see a prosecution or investigation level that’s nearly going to come to the level of fraud that actually exists,” he said. “When you actually have some cases of fraud that you catch being perpetrated, you know that there’s a multiplier effect in there and that there’s a whole lot more that we haven’t caught.”
Van Hollen noted that although Wisconsin passed a voter ID law a few election cycles ago, the law was put on hold by the courts.
“I think [the voter ID law] reduces the opportunity for potential voter fraud considerably. We don’t have that, which means we have to be that much more vigilant,” he explained.
According to Van Hollen, his office combined with the district attorney’s office and police department in Milwaukee County alone during the 2008 election have prosecuted a combined 20 cases relating to voter fraud.
The U.S. Justice Department announced on Monday it will be monitoring voter poll activities in Milwaukee during the recall election. Van Hollen mentioned his team will also be in the field as well to prevent voter fraud and ensure that no one is “obstructing the voting places” and “that we give good legal advice to poll workers so things can proceed smoothly.”
“Here we have people going out in a professional legal capacity and quite frankly I think Eric Holder has the best of intentions as well. They have a job to do and that’s enforcing the voter rights act. We have a job to do in making sure there’s integrity in our voting process here in Wisconsin,” he explained.
“I want to have agents and attorneys in the field so that is something does go wrong, we can scramble to the nearest courthouse and make sure we can clarify things because the next day is too late if we have problems with election integrity.”
