Green Party secretary of state candidate charges Republican impersonated him in text message

Pete Karas, the Green Party candidate in the race for Wisconsin secretary of state, filed a complaint Monday against Republican candidate Jay Schroeder, charging that Schroeder’s campaign impersonated Karas in text messages sent to voters over the weekend.

The complaint, filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission,  alleges that Schroeder’s campaign violated a Wisconsin law against publishing “a false representation pertaining to a candidate or referendum which is intended or tends to affect voting at an election.”

Karas said the messages appeared to be intended to draw votes from the Democratic candidate in the race, JoCasta Zamarripa.

Schroeder did not respond immediately Monday to phone, email and text messages seeking comment about the allegations and the Wisconsin Elections Commission complaint that Karas filed.

According to the complaint, over the weekend text messages went out to voters with an image of Karas, a headline “Not a duopoly candidate,” and urging people to “Vote Pete Karas for Secretary of State on November 3.”

A screenshot shows that when a person replied “Stop” to the message, the reply came back, “Jay for Wisconsin: You are now opted-out and will receive no further messages.”

Schroeder is running on a platform focused almost exclusively on eliminating the elections commission and moving election administration back into the secretary of state’s office. The job of running elections in Wisconsin was moved out of the secretary of state’s office in 1974.

Schroeder has claimed the change would restore “integrity” to the administration of elections. His assertions have largely been rejected by the other candidates, elections commission officials and outside observers.  

“What he did was dishonest and lacks integrity, and he’s talking about election integrity,” Karas said in an interview Monday. “I don’t know how we can trust him to run honest elections when he behaves like this in a campaign.”

One of Schroeder’s chief complaints has been the state’s practice of retaining information about voters who are removed from the state’s registration list rather than deleting their records entirely.

Election commission officials have pointed out that the law does not allow records to be deleted, and that a voter whose record is converted to “inactive” is no longer on the lists used to make up poll books of registered voters. Deleting the records would remove a safeguard against voter fraud, according to Don Millis, the Republican chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Karas said his own campaign has not sent any text messages to voters. He said he learned about the messages over the weekend from reporters.

“I was distraught about that, obviously. It’s really low of Jay [Schroeder] to do that,” Karas said. “It looks like what he’s trying to do is take votes from JoCasta [Zamarripa].”

The presence of three candidates in the general election as well as Schroeder’s focus on rewriting Wisconsin’s election administration law has alarmed Zamarripa and other Democrats, who cite the possibility that Karas’ campaign could divide voters, enabling Schroeder to get elected with less than 50% of the vote.

Karas said the weekend texts don’t lend credence to that concern. “I think this hurts me more than it helps me,” he said.

The message refers to healthcare costs and education costs — issues that Karas said he has not been centering because they have nothing to do with the secretary of state’s race.

“The message that he sent out in my name — ‘The one we’ve been waiting for’ — how presumptuous was that type of statement? If the intent was to take votes away from JoCasta, what he sent out was not a good representation of my cause.”