Buyer Of Voter Billboards Outed, Calls Them Public Service Effort

The anonymous buyers of a controversial series of “voter fraudâ€? billboards in Ohio and Wisconsin have been identified. Milwaukee resident Stephen Einhorn is Principal of Capital Midwest Fund, president of Einhorn Associates, and serves on the Milwaukee Art Museum’s board. He also gave $25,000 to Freedomworks for America, a conservative Political Action Committee that’s endorsed candidates such as Indiana Senatorial hopeful Richard Mourduck and Ohio state treasurer Josh Mandel. His wife, Nancy Einhorn, serves on the board of the Milwaukee Ballet and recently gave more than $30,000 to the RNC. She’s also given over $3,000 to a couple Tea Party-backed House members in Wisconsin. An African-American news organization, TheGrio, and an activist group, One Wisconsin Now, say they did a joint investigation to uncover the Einhorns. The couple bought 175 billboards in battleground states Ohio and Wisconsin, which were placed in largely poor, African-American neighborhoods with the phrase, “Voter Fraud is a felonyâ€? and a giant gavel. In a statement, the Einhorns say they placed the billboards as a public service, as voter fraud undermines the democratic process. But many African-American leaders and ex-felon advocates liken it to Jim Crow tactics, meant to scare and disenfranchise certain voters. After several weeks of outcry, the billboards were all taken down. Many have been replaced with new ones, asserting that voting is a right, not a crime.