Ukrainian woman charged with election fraud related to Mequon School Board election
A Ukrainian woman charged with election fraud for voting as a non-citizen at Mequon’s school board election will appear in circuit court later this month.
Olha Voinovych, 46, was charged Oct. 2 in Ozaukee County Circuit Court with one felony count of election fraud – voting by a disqualified person.
Her initial appearance will take place on Nov. 9.
When detectives told Voinovych in late April that she may have voted illegally as a non-citizen earlier that month, Voinovych said it was not purposeful and a misunderstanding of the forms, according to a Mequon Police Department report obtained by the Journal Sentinel.
Due to Voinovych’s limited English abilities, she was assisted by her daughter-in-law — a U.S. citizen — in speaking to a detective from the Mequon PD. Voinovych’s daughter-in-law explained that she had filled out the voter registration form and checked all of the boxes. Voinovych then admitted to voting in the election, according to the criminal complaint.
April 6, the Mequon Police Department received an email from the city clerk that Voinovych, a “temporary visitor” as she appeared in records from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, had voted at the school board election that day, according to the complaint.
A detective at the department reviewed the voter registration application provided by the clerk and observed four boxes were checked:
"Are you a citizen of the United States?"
"Have resided at the address provided below for at least 28 consecutive days prior to the election and do not currently intend to move"
"Will be at least 18 years old on or before Election Day"
"Are not currently serving a sentence including incarceration, parole, probation or extended supervision for a felony conviction"
The police department checked Voinovych through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement records and discovered she is currently seeking asylum, and her case is going through the asylum process in the Chicago Asylum Office, according to the complaint. Voinovych is not a U.S. citizen and is currently a citizen of Ukraine.
Voinovych entered the U.S. legally as a non-immigrant in 2017 but has remained illegally since 2017, according to the police report. However, the ICE records also showed that Voinovych was provided an employment authorization card expiring in 2025 and has followed immigration rules in re-upping the card since 2017.
The consequences of an election fraud conviction, a Class I felony, may be a fine of up to $10,000, prison time for up to three and a half years, or both, under Wisconsin state law.
Instances of election fraud are rare, Thomas Hicks, commissioner of the independent and bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission, told Reuters in a June 2022 fact check on voter fraud frequency.
Hicks said that the “actual incidence of voter fraud is relatively small and for the most part is unintentional.”
For example, a monthslong analysis by the Associated Press found fewer than 475 cases of potential voter fraud in the six, contested battleground states in the 2020 presidential election.
Contact Claudia Levens at clevens@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @levensc13
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Felony election fraud charge filed against woman in Ozaukee County
