I am working on a longer post that is taking longer than usual. In the meantime, I wanted to make sure readers saw a new piece I wrote for Bolts Mag about Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling’s “investigation” into what he framed as voting irregularities in an elder care facility.
The centerpiece of Schamling’s “case” was a woman named Judy Westphal-Mitchell who believed that her mother Shirley Westphal was in some way urged to vote by the people working at an assisted care facility where Westphal was then living. (She passed away before the November 2020 election.) Judy argued that her mother had “given up on life” and wasn’t mentally fit to vote.
But experts in voting rights for the elderly have been clear that “testing” people for voting fitness is unconstitutional. There is no such thing as a test for mental fitness to vote. People can vote however they want. They can vote by party, by name recognition, at random if they wish. It strikes me as cruel and unfair to presume that the elderly somehow lack autonomy or personal desire, never mind advertise it on the internet and in the media. After we saw COVID ravage long-term care facilities, understand how healthcare workers are grossly underpaid, and consider how end-of-life decisions get made, the issue of elder voting rights takes on new importance. It’s about voting, as I wrote in my story, but it’s also about what it means to participate in society.
Sheriffs, the most political of all law enforcement, have the power to investigate voter “fraud.” They can pick and choose what claims to believe and who to interview. They can have press conferences on the internet. All of those political choices impact very real people, even when the issue is voting irregularities. There is no neutral criminal investigation.