US Senate candidate Eric Hovde questions whether nursing home residents should vote

MADISON – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde drew national attention this week for suggesting most nursing home residents are not qualified to vote as he detailed his concerns with election administration in Wisconsin.

A Hovde campaign spokesman on Tuesday said the candidate's comments did not imply that elderly people should not vote.

"We had nursing homes where the sheriff of Racine investigated, where you had 100% voting in nursing homes," Hovde said, referring to the 2020 election, during a recent interview on the Guy Benson Show. "Well, if you're in a nursing home, you only have five, six months life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote. And you have children, adult children showing up that said, who voted for my 85- or 90-year-old father or mother?"

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How residents of Wisconsin nursing homes voted during the 2020 election became a central focus of Republicans questioning the outcome of the presidential contest, even though recounts, an independent audit and a report from a conservative group all verify the result that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by more than 20,000 votes in the state.

"Between these comments and his promises to cut Social Security and raise the retirement age, Eric Hovde continues to show that he does not respect Wisconsinites, understand our struggles, or share our values," said Andrew Mamo, spokesman for Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin's campaign, in a statement.

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Hovde has told reporters and radio hosts on multiple occasions that his campaign won't relitigate the 2020 election and he does not believe it was stolen — but that changes are needed in order to restore confidence in elections.

"In no manner did Eric Hovde suggest that elderly people should not vote. He was referring to specific cases in Racine Co. where family members raised concerns about their loved ones voting," said Hovde spokesman Ben Voelkel in a statement.

How did nursing homes become a contentious election issue?

Voting in nursing homes during the pandemic emerged as a flashpoint in Republicans' quest to overhaul how elections are conducted in Wisconsin as former President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim his 2020 loss was a product of widespread cheating.

State law requires municipal clerks to dispatch poll workers known as special voting deputies to nursing homes to assist residents with filling out ballots. The Wisconsin Elections Commission advised clerks to ignore that law in 2020 and send absentee ballots to nursing home residents because the facilities were not accepting visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Outrage over that decision ramped up in October 2021 after Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling issued a report saying that policy resulted in sloppy practice at the Ridgewood Care Center in Mount Pleasant. He questioned whether some residents should have voted and argued five of the six members of the commission should be charged with felonies.

Racine County District Attorney Patricia Hanson in February concluded she had no authority to charge the commissioners. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm also declined to charge two commissioners living in his area, citing a lack of evidence showing a crime had been committed.

The commissioners insisted they did not commit crimes and said they suggested the approach to ensure the right to vote was not infringed upon for the vulnerable adults.

The commission restored its guidance to again dispatch special voting deputies to nursing homes after the pandemic subsided in 2021.

Under state law, only a judge can declare a person ineligible to vote due to incompetency. That decision is based on a determination of whether the person is "incapable of understanding the objective of the elective process."

Why is Eric Hovde being asked about the 2020 election?

During a rally in Green Bay earlier this month, Trump offered Hovde his "complete and total endorsement."

"That's a big race," the former president told the crowd. "And we'll be here to help."

The endorsement comes as Trump continues to repeat the lie that he won Wisconsin in 2020. In a radio interview Tuesday, he warned the state's top election administrator "will try to steal another election" if she's not removed before he and Biden face each other on the ballot again. He also accused Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Reince Priebus, Trump's former chief of staff, of not doing enough to force out Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe.

Asked last week about Trump's repeated lies, Hovde told reporters in Milwaukee, "I'm running in 2024. I'm running for the U.S. Senate. But I do say, we have to get confidence back in our election system."

Hovde also argued that "a lot of people in the state feel President Biden is very divisive."

"I will just say that the politics of division play out on both sides," Hovde said.

What policy changes does Hovde support?

The Hovde campaign did not name any specific policy changes he believes would address his concerns with election administration. But Hovde told reporters last week he is glad Wisconsin voters approved two constitutional amendments that prohibit clerks from using private grants to administer elections and add that only appointed election officials can perform tasks to conduct elections.

The two referendum questions on the April 2 ballot came from a proposal authored by Republicans who continue to scrutinize millions of dollars in grants that helped Wisconsin clerks meet unexpected costs during the pandemic. Clerks used the money for personal protective equipment and drop boxes for absentee ballots, for example.

The grants, which were funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan and distributed by the Center for Tech and Civic Life, went to more than 200 communities in Wisconsin, including Republican areas. But the bulk of the money went toward the state's five largest cities, which Republicans said drummed up turnout.

"If a big conservative Republican came into the state and was targeting conservative areas to push out the vote, let me tell you, liberals would be outraged by that," Hovde told reporters last week.

"You had ballot harvesting in public places. … You had correction of votes," Hovde said, referring to the collection of absentee ballots in public parks and the "curing" of absentee ballot envelopes missing parts of witnesses' addresses. "All those things need to be cleaned up. It's wrong. And if it was happening on the other side, people would be outraged. So let's find a system to bring everybody's confidence back into the election process."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Senate candidate Eric Hovde questions voting by nursing home residents