MADISON, Wis. – A man said Wednesday that he voted in his late wife’s name in November to fulfill her dying wish to cast a ballot for Barack Obama.

Stephen Wroblewski, 64, of Milwaukee, said he plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of making a false statement to obtain an absentee ballot.

His wife, Jacqueline Wroblewski, was a veteran Democratic activist and former poll worker who died of lung cancer in August. Her husband of 25 years said he cast an absentee ballot in her name and also voted under his own name.

“She was such a Democrat and saw there was finally going to be a new administration. She really wanted to live long enough to vote,” Wroblewski said Wednesday in a phone interview. “But I still don’t know why I did it. A grief counselor told me it was just a matter of keeping her close to me and not letting go.”

The absentee ballot was not counted. A volunteer poll worker who was processing absentee ballots in Milwaukee the night of the election happened to be a family friend.

“Out of 35,000 ballots, she pulls that one and blurts out that she knew my wife and that she was dead,” Wroblewski said.

He added that his wife would have been appalled about what he did because she “was a stickler for the rules.”

Wroblewski was charged last month; a copy of the complaint was released Wednesday. He is set to appear in court next month.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison, but Assistant Milwaukee County District Attorney Bruce Landgraf said Wroblewski is unlikely to face jail time given his lack of a criminal record.

Prosecutors previously declined to charge a Milwaukee woman who turned herself in on Election Day after casting two absentee ballots, but Landgraf said this case was different. He said Wroblewski’s acts “were designed to have the effect of voting twice in the election,” and that he turned himself in only after learning that his wife’s ballot was being challenged.

Wroblewski’s attorney, Jim Blask, said he had advised his client to take the case to trial. Jurors would have been sympathetic to Wroblewski, who was grieving and not thinking clearly at the time, he said.

“Anyone who has ever been married realizes that sometimes you do things you otherwise wouldn’t do because she’s your wife,” Blask said. “You might sign her checks or make purchases on her behalf. That’s how Stephen felt toward Jackie.”

But Wroblewski said he simply wants to end the embarrassing episode. He said he spent 12 hours in jail after he was booked on the charge last month and worries about potentially going back.

“I just wish they’d drop this whole thing,” said Wroblewski, a retired sales representative for Time Warner. “The vote didn’t even count.”

Six people have been charged with election-related crimes in Milwaukee County stemming from the presidential election. Dozens of other cases remain under investigation.

A Government Accountability Board survey of district attorneys released last week showed that only two other election cases were known to have been filed statewide.

RALEIGH, N.C. – A budget to operate North Carolina state government for the next two years is ready for debate on the Senate floor.

Senate Democrats prepared to hold the first of two required votes on the spending plan Wednesday afternoon.

The budget spends $20 billion in state funds for the fiscal year starting July 1. It narrows a $3.4 billion gap between projected revenues and expenses by cutting costs, spending stimulus money and generating $500 million in tax increases. Republicans are frustrated because Democrats don’t plan to finalize what they intend to tax until later.

The budget should pass by the end of the week and head to the House, which will create its own version. The two chambers then will work on a compromise to present to Gov. Beverly Perdue.

The smoking ban vote fell around party lines, the PPP reports.

WASHINGTON – The Senate has passed a major national service bill that triples the AmeriCorps program and encourages a broad range of Americans to give back to their communities.

The House could take up the bill as early as Monday, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The Senate voted 78-20 to increase AmeriCorps to 250,000 from its current 75,000 positions over eight years.

The bill would also create five groups to help poor people, improve education, encourage energy efficiency, strengthen access to health care and assist veterans.

The measure won support from both parties despite assertions by some Republicans that it represents a costly and unnecessary intrusion by government.

But don’t get excited, cautions the Greensboro News-Record.

A study of North Carolina’s voter participation during the 2008 presidential election, showed that more voters didn’t just help Barack Obama, but also John McCain, the Herald-Sun reports.

The Cary Town Council will hold a public hearing Thursday to discuss the instant-runoff voting system, which allows voters to rank their choices.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has ruled that electoral districts must have a majority of African-Americans or other minorities to be protected by a provision of the Voting Rights Act.
     
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WASHINGTON  – The District of Columbia’s two-century-long wait for a voice in Congress was a step closer to ending Tuesday with a crucial Senate vote to take up legislation giving the capital city’s 600,000 residents a full seat in the House.

The Senate voted 62-34, two more than needed, to begin debate on the measure that would increase the House to 437 members. It would give the Democratic-dominated city a new vote while adding a fourth seat to Republican-leaning Utah.

Key to the vote was that Democrats, who overwhelmingly support the bill, have seven more Senate seats than two years ago when the chamber fell three votes short of the 60 required to end a Republican-led filibuster.

The bill still faces contentious amendments and may have to overcome GOP opposition to moving to a final vote. If it does pass the Senate, possibly by the end of the week, the bill goes on to a receptive House and ultimately to President Barack Obama, who supports it.

If enacted into law, the measure is likely to face court challenges from opponents who contend that giving a House seat to D.C. is unconstitutional because the District is not a state. The Supreme Court could be the final arbiter.

“I find it unimaginable that 600,000 Americans have no voice and no vote in the United States Congress,” the Senate’s no. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said in urging support for the measure.

Past votes denying residents of the federal capital a vote in the House “left the citizens of the District with the wholly unsought-after distinction of being the only residents of a democratically ruled national capital in the world who have no say in how their nation is governed. It’s really astounding,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., sponsor of the measure with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

“We’re closer than we’ve ever been,” Ilir Zherka, executive director of the advocacy group DC Vote, said ahead of a preliminary vote.

More than 3,000 people from across the nation called their senators Monday asking them to support the measure, according to DC Vote. Callers from the District, who don’t have a senator, were directed to lawmakers who might be uncertain, such as Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C.

Washington has been without a vote in Congress since 1801, when Congress took control of the newly created capital on the Potomac but did not provide residents with voting rights.

Voting rights advocates believe the measure will win enough Senate support for a final vote later this week that requires only a simple majority for passage. The House Judiciary Committee votes on the legislation Wednesday, and the full House could take it up in early March.

With the president’s signature, D.C. residents would elect a representative with full voting rights for January 2011, barring court interdiction.

One possible stumbling block, Zherka said, is that some lawmakers could add amendments making the bill less appealing to voting rights supporters. In 2007, the bill was slowed in the House after Republicans proposed language that would weaken the city’s gun laws.

Opponents argue that the bill violates the Constitution, which says members of the House should be chosen “by the people of the several states.” The District, of course, is not a state.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who spoke in favor of the bill earlier this month, said the question of constitutionality should be resolved by the courts, not Congress.

“As a matter of fundamental fairness, I believe the residents of the District of Columbia should have representation in the House,” she said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has spoken out against the bill. He said the legislation could be the first step toward giving the District two senators. He also criticized the compromise that would give Utah an extra House seat, saying that is unfair to other high-growth states.

“I don’t like the deal and I think it is unconstitutional,” he said.

The District has been represented since 1991 by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Norton, like five other delegates from island territories, can vote in committees and on some amendments on the House floor but not on final passage of legislation.

The bill is S. 160.