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Frank Walton, 29, submitted the inaccurate voter forms to the city Election Commission, according to a criminal complaint, with errors that also included fake driver’s license numbers and Social Security numbers.
Walton faces one count of falsely procuring voter registration and faces up to 3½ years in prison and $10,000 in fines if he’s convicted.
Attempts to reach Walton through his grandmother in Kenosha and his last residency in Oak Creek were unsuccessful. It’s not known if Walton has an attorney yet.
According to court records, Walton was evicted from his Oak Creek apartment in 2005 and has since lived with his grandmother and friends in Milwaukee, maintaining only a post office box.
Walton becomes the third worker at Community Voters Project charged with election fraud in Wisconsin.
Adam Mucklin, 22, of Milwaukee was charged on Oct. 7 with registering to vote and then trying to register others even though he is a convicted felon. Endalyn Adams, 21, also of Milwaukee, was charged Sept. 29 with submitting dozens of fake registrations.
The Community Voters Project is run by the Boston-based Fund for the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization that works to increase the political power of environmental and progress groups, according to its Web site.
CVP Director Ayodele Carroo said the organization works hard to detect suspicious forms and the disputed voters make up a small percentage of the 25,000 people CVP workers have registered in Milwaukee since May.
“Unfortunately, there are always a few who will fake their work, and we’ve invested a great deal of resources in catching suspicious forms before they reach the registrar,” Carroo said in a statement.
The complaint said Walton collected 70 voter registrations for CVP between June 4 and June 17. He was fired him after the Milwaukee City Election Commission notified the CVP that Walton had registered a dead man. Investigators determined only 16 of the 70 registration forms Walton turned in were accurate.
Driver’s license information on 17 of 23 forms were incorrect and 40 of 45 forms that used Social Security numbers didn’t match the voter. Some of the registrations also included addresses that didn’t exist or led back to businesses or vacant buildings.
Walton told investigators he was expected to obtain at least 15 registrations per day for CVP. Walton also said he remembered interviewing the dead man, Joseph Scroggins, on Milwaukee’s south side — even though Scroggins’ widow said the man died in 1992.
Walton also told authorities he had been doing door-to-door voter surveys for The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, since he left CVP. ACORN’s voter registration efforts also have been the focus of fraud investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri and at least five other states.
Carolyn Castore, ACORN’s political director in Wisconsin, said Walton never worked for the organization and her workers don’t do voter surveys.
Republicans have been raising fears about rampant voter fraud in Wisconsin for years.
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, created an election fraud task force in September.
Adams, Mucklin and Walton’s cases are among 49 city election officials have submitted to the task force for review.
