MacIver News Service | August 24, 2010
[Milwaukee, Wisc…] Former ACORN employee Maria Miles has plead guilty to, and was convicted of, one count of election fraud arising out of the November 4, 2008, Presidential Election.The felony charge of falsely procuring voter registration carries a potential penalty of imprisonment up to 3 ½ years and a $10,000 fine.
“False registration schemes undermine the integrity of voter lists and heighten the risk of vote dilution,” Wisconsin Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen told MacIver News. “Together with district attorneys, my office will continue to investigate and prosecute election fraud.”
According to the criminal complaint, Miles served as a Special Registration Deputy for the City of Milwaukee in advance of the 2008 Presidential Election and worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (“ACORN”).
By entering a plea of guilty today, Miles admitted to submitting multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also being part of a scheme in which she and other registration deputies registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN.
Miles was charged by the Election Fraud Task Force, a collaborative effort between the Wisconsin Department of Justice, the Milwaukee District Attorney’s Office and the Milwaukee Police Department. She is charged in the same complaint as Kevin Clancy, also a former ACORN worker. Clancy’s case is scheduled for a guilty plea hearing on September 22nd.
Miles is scheduled to be sentenced on October 15th.
Last month Van Hollen announced the launch of a joint Elections Integrity Task Force Efforts with District Attorneys in eleven of Wisconsin’s largest counties.
That multijurisdictional action team follows the partnership in Milwaukee County, which investigated and prosecuted Miles. According to Van Hollen, the expanded, and bipartisan, Task Force will develop and share information, resources, tactics and strategy regarding matters involving election integrity and the enforcement of Wisconsin’s elections laws.
“Our expanded efforts will better ensure voter confidence and will address issues related to election integrity,” said Van Hollen when he unveiled the expanded effort in July. “This builds on our successful efforts in Milwaukee while reinforcing our roles and partnerships. Elections are undermined when people engage in unlawful voting or otherwise commit fraud on the elections process. We have an obligation to make certain our election system is fair and legal.”
Van Hollen spoke with MacIver News Service earlier this year about his ongoing efforts to fight voter fraud in Wisconsin, in the interview he acknowledges that efforts to fight vote fraud in Wisconsin are substantial and ongoing.