Man convicted of illegally voting avoids prison time
Mar. 29—CALEDONIA, Minn. — A 75-year-old Brownsville man received a stayed 15-month prison sentence in Houston County District Court on Wednesday, March 29, 2023, for illegally voting in several elections in 2020 and 2022.
Kenneth Gerald Wiese, Jr., was facing three counts of knowingly voting as an ineligible voter and one count of attempting to knowingly voting as an ineligible voter, all felonies, in three separate cases. He pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly voting as an ineligible voter as part of a plea deal that dismissed the other three charges.
District Judge Carmaine Sturrino put Wiese on five months of supervised probation and ordered him not to possess or use any firearms, explosives or mood altering substances.
During the hearing Wednesday, she stressed that Wiese is still not allowed to vote.
"Continued efforts to vote could end up as a prison sentence," Sturrino said in court.
According to court documents:
The Houston County Deputy Auditor notified the Houston County Sheriff's Office that Wiese had voted on May 24, 2022. Wiese is ineligible to vote following felony convictions of first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct in Houston County in 2006.
Wiese also attempted to vote on Aug. 9, 2022, at a Brownsville polling station but an election judge told him he could not.
Wiese told the election judge that he had a letter stating he could, in fact, vote, and was told he needed to return to the polling station with the letter. He did not return.
He also voted by mail-in ballot in the state primary election on Aug. 11, 2020, and the state general election on Nov. 3, 2020.
The mail-in ballots were addressed to Wiese's father, and Wiese admitted to law enforcement that he had filled out and signed the ballots before sending them out.
