Wisconsin has definitely become a polarized environment, with the Democratic effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker being just the latest symptom. But one man who supports Walker found out the hard way that it’s not only bad form to vandalize a recall petition — it’s against the law.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
A West Bend man told police he intentionally scribbled over petitions seeking the recall of Gov. Scott Walker with the hopes it would “screw up the petition.”
But when Jeffery Karnitz handed the defaced petition back to a recall volunteer, she told him, “I hope you know that’s a felony,” and from then, he told police, “I kind of kicked myself in the ass.”
Recall volunteers wrote down Karnitz’s license plate number, and reported him to the police.
And in fact, he has been charged with a felony — under a subset of election fraud laws, in a bit of an irony for Wisconsin Republicans who have actively pushed voter-ID laws — punishable by a maximum of one and a half years in prison, two years extended supervision, and a $10,000 fine.
