Wisconsin prosecutor won't bring election fraud charges

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin county district attorney said she will not bring election fraud charges against members of the state elections commission or nursing home workers after a sheriff who backed former President Donald Trump called for them to be prosecuted.

Racine County District Attorney Patricia Hanson said in a letter dated Thursday that she would not file charges against members of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission because none of them live in her county and she doesn't have jurisdiction.

The district attorney said she was frustrated by the jurisdiction issue because she believed that the election commission exceeded its legal authority with its decision not to send in the voting helpers into nursing homes as the law required.

Hanson also told Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling that she would not file charges against staff at the Ridgewood Care Center because it was unreasonable to expect them to know the law better than the elections commission.

The sheriff had recommended that five members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission be criminally charged for telling local elections officials to send absentee ballots to eight nursing home residents in 2020 instead of sending poll workers to oversee voting there during the coronavirus pandemic.

Schmaling said so-called Special Voting Deputies should have been sent in to help residents who did not have the mental capacity to vote. The commission voted 5-1 against sending poll workers into nursing homes due to a safer-at-home order issued by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. Schmaling said the five commissioners who voted no should each face two felony and two misdemeanor charges. Charges were not recommended the commissioner who voted yes.

“It is appalling to me that an appointed, unelected...