Republican candidate busted for voting in two states

A Republican state senate candidate in Wisconsin is facing accusations of multistate voting after records emerged indicating that she voted in both Wisconsin and Georgia in recent years. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, online voting records show that Republican candidate Michele Magadance Skinner “voted absentee in Wisconsin in the Nov. 3, 2020, general election. Then, just 15 days later, she registered to vote in Georgia using the address of her family's four bedroom lake house in the town of Dawsonville,” Wisconsin.

As the Sentinel reports, “Records show Skinner voted on Jan. 5, 2021, in Georgia's high-stakes federal runoff election. That month, Sen. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff, both Democrats, won Georgia's U.S. Senate runoff elections, giving Democrats control of the U.S. Senate. In order to register to vote in Georgia, a person needs to be a U.S. citizen, a legal resident of the county, not be serving a sentence for a felony conviction involving moral turpitude, and not have been found mentally incompetent by a judge.”

Skinner went on to vote in Wisconsin the following year, in the April 5, 2022 spring election. She cast her ballot in person at the Washington Town Hall in Eau Claire, according to records. She has continued to vote in Wisconsin elections ever since.

According to the Sentinel, “Under state law, a person can no longer vote in Wisconsin once they permanently move to another state or vote there. At that point, one can vote in Wisconsin again only by re-establishing residency, which requires living at a Wisconsin address for at least 28 consecutive days before an election.” The paper reports that “Skinner's race has attracted heavy spending from both state parties, with control of the state Senate potentially hanging in the balance and Republicans viewing the seat as a possible pickup for the party in November.”

Revelations of Skinner’s multi-state voting come as Republicans and President Donald Trump level wide-ranging claims about voter fraud, frequently pushing debunked claims that it is common among noncitizens and Democrats. Will Karcz, a spokesman for the State Senate Democratic Committee, declared, "Michele Magadance Skinner has disqualified herself from holding elected office in Wisconsin. MAGA Republicans in Wisconsin would be foaming at the mouth if this had been a Democrat but are stunningly silent when it’s one of their own."

With the Senate majority at stake, this controversy adds intense pressure to an already tight race.