Wisconsin clerks refer 46 cases of suspected fraud, irregularities in 2024 presidential election

Wisconsin election officials have referred 46 cases of suspected voter fraud or irregularities from the 2024 presidential election to prosecutors, according to a report released this week by the Wisconsin Elections Commission. These cases represent a minuscule fraction—about 0.002%—of the more than 3.4 million ballots cast in the state.

The report, which will be formally approved at the commission’s meeting on Tuesday, covers suspected voting irregularities between September 2023 and November 2025. In total, 127 cases were referred to prosecutors during this period, with less than half related to the presidential contest narrowly won by Donald Trump.

Wisconsin law requires local clerks to notify the state elections commission whenever they refer cases of suspected fraud to district attorneys. The commission then compiles these reports annually for the state legislature. This represents an increase from the previous reporting period, which documented 30 referrals between July 2023 and September 2024.

The report does not identify individuals by name or indicate which candidates they attempted to support. Wisconsin voters do not register by political party, making it impossible to determine the political affiliation of those involved in the suspected irregularities.

Notable among the cases were two incidents in Marathon County described as “disruption of drop box” and “continuing disruption of drop box/election.” These appear to reference Wausau Mayor Doug Diny, who physically removed a ballot drop box from outside City Hall. The city’s election clerk referred the case to the elections commission, and Wausau’s ethics board has since determined that Diny violated the city’s ethics policy. A criminal investigation led by Republican District Attorney Eric Toney, who is currently running for state attorney general, remains ongoing.

In Milwaukee County, the state’s most populous county, officials reported 11 cases of potential double voting in the presidential primary. Meanwhile, Dane County, Wisconsin’s second-largest county, reported one instance of someone attempting to return another person’s absentee ballot in the November election and one case of alleged “noncitizen registration and voting” connected to the 2020 and 2022 general elections—the only case in the report involving a noncitizen.

The majority of referrals—61 cases—were related to this year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which broke national spending records for a judicial race with nearly 2.4 million ballots cast. That hotly contested election attracted attention from prominent figures including former President Trump and billionaires Elon Musk and George Soros, ultimately resulting in victory for the liberal candidate backed by Democrats.

The remaining 20 cases were distributed across various other elections dating back to 2020.

The commission noted in its accompanying memo that the report may not capture all instances of potential fraud. Some election clerks might have referred cases directly to prosecutors without the commission’s knowledge, while other complaints may have been filed by individuals or groups directly with district attorneys, bypassing both local clerks and the elections commission.

Election security experts from both major political parties have consistently maintained that America’s decentralized election system—Wisconsin alone has more than 1,800 local clerks—makes large-scale fraud capable of swinging an election virtually impossible. The multilayered processes built into the nation’s electoral system provide numerous safeguards that generally keep voter fraud rare and detectable, though isolated incidents do occasionally occur.

This report comes amid continued national debate over election integrity following the 2024 presidential election, even as evidence continues to show that significant fraud remains extremely uncommon in American elections.