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“Uneventful, steady, friendly, happy,” assistant attorney general Rebecca Weise wrote in a report after visiting a Stevens Point polling site. “Jazz music playing — nice atmosphere!” assistant AG David Maas wrote about his visit to a Milwaukee school where voters cast ballots.
The department released more than 280 pages of reports from special agents and assistant attorneys general dispatched by Van Hollen to polling sites.
Gov. Jim Doyle and other Democrats had accused Van Hollen, a Republican, of sending the workers to intimidate voters and interfere with the election process. Van Hollen said his Democratic predecessor did the same thing and he only wanted to ensure a clean election and stop fraud.
Democratic Party of Wisconsin attorney Matthew O’Neill said the agents caused problems. They demanded election observers have no contact with voters — even those who needed translations or help registering, he said.
“Our observers found that these agents were intimidating and one of the bigger problems that arose on Election Day,” he said Thursday.
The Department of Justice employees were asked to make sure voting signs were posted correctly, to make sure poll workers were checking lists of ineligible voters and to watch for illegal campaigning.
There was only one report of a site not making sure new voters weren’t on their ineligible voter list, and a few reports of campaign activity within 100 feet of polls. Several employees reported ordering election workers to post sample ballots or signs that were missing or to move ones that were hard to read.
The employees also were asked to write down “anything you consider unusual or noteworthy.”
In Kenosha, one employee wrote that a television showing a news channel was visible from the polling area at a bowling alley. “Bowling alley cooperated by changing channel. No problems since,” the employee reported.
Agents reported looking into a few complaints — such as children being allowed to vote or ballots being torn up — that were later found to be false.
One said he counseled a Payday Loan Store manager to allow workers time off to vote after receiving a complaint from an employee who said she was threatened with discipline for doing so.
At an elementary school in La Crosse, Assistant Attorney General Steven Kilpatrick reported telling poll workers their sign on a table listing the hours “was not sufficient, in my opinion. She agreed to post sign on wall.”
While Maas enjoyed the jazz music at one polling location, he reported receiving a chilly reception at two others in Milwaukee.
“Very standoffish chief and staff. Chief wanted nothing to do with us,” he wrote about his visit to Carver Academy. “He wouldn’t even look at me when I would talk to him, and responded to questions as if he could care less. ... Entire staff and chief weren’t very personable.”
At Ben Franklin School, Maas wrote: “Kind of a ‘bad vibe’ inside — we did not feel welcome.”
Two poll watchers ran inside as the agents approached and then reappeared outside after they left, apparently writing down their license plate numbers, Maas reported.
Special agent Bryan Kastelic described a run-in he and a colleague had with two election observers who warned they “would not be allowed to ‘interfere’ with workers.”
After learning they were DOJ agents, one female observer stated, “Van Hollen’s people,” the report said.
