The Wisconsin Department of Justice brought election fraud charges against an activist who bragged about committing voter fraud to prove his point about how easy it is to break election law.
According to the DOJ, Harry Wait, 68, went to MyVote.wi.gov in July and requested primary ballots in the names of Robin Vos the Republican Assembly Speaker and Racine mayor Cory Mason (D). Wait received Mason’s ballot which he says he sent back to county officials unopened but he never received Vos’.
After requesting the ballots Wait contacted Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling (R) and told him what he did. He said Schmaling praised him and refused to arrest him even though requesting someone else’s ballot without their knowledge is a crime.
Wait also posted about requesting the ballots on Facebook and did an interview owning up to committing the crime.
“I was notified that there may be vulnerability in the online WEC [Wisconsin Election Commission] voting system,” Wait told WISN. “So in order to test them on Tuesday night, we went online and we ordered ballots for Cory Mason, who is the mayor of the city of Racine, and Robin Vos, who happens to be our state assembly leader.”
Wait said he is willing to go to jail if that’s what it takes to prove how easy it is to commit voter fraud in Wisconsin.
“If that’s what it takes to stop the fraud in our elections so we can have safe, real safe secure elections yes, I’ll go behind bars,” he said. “We actually videoed this whole piece and we will give it to the government if they want to prosecute me you know. Technically I did commit a crime, but there was no nefarious intentions with it, we just wanted to show how easily it could be done.”
On Thursday, Wait was charged with two counts of election fraud and two counts of unauthorized use of an individual’s personal identifying information, the Wisconsin DOJ said. If found guilty on all charges, he could face a maximum of 13 years in prison and $22,000 in fines.
In an interview with the Washington Post, he expressed no remorse, telling the outlet: “In hindsight, I’d do it all over again a hundred times over.”
Wait describes himself as the president of a group called H.O.T Government, which stands for “honest, open and transparent government.”
