Paul V. Malloy

Paul V. Malloy is the presiding circuit court judge for Ozaukee County, Wisconsin.[1]

Education and career

He graduated with a Batchelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1981, and received his law degree from John Marshall Law School (Chicago) in 1985.[2] He was appointed to the bench in 2002, then elected to a full six-year term in 2003. He was re-elected in 2009 and 2015.[3] His term expires in 2021.

Controversies

In October 2014, Circuit Court Judge Joseph Voiland described a confrontation in which he and Molloy stood "nearly nose to nose" with Malloy was yelling "as loud as I have heard anyone yell before." Malloy admitted yelling but said the dispute was exaggerated given that there was a desk and chair between them. In August 2015, Voiland jailed a woman after a hearing in which Voiland said he didn't believe her. Malloy released the woman after her attorney argued that Voiland didn't establish any legal basis for holding her or provide for her an alternative method to seek release.

Randy Koschnick, the district judge at the time but now the director of state courts, had to intervene at times in disputes between Malloy and Voiland, including in June 2016 after Malloy ordered Court Commissioner Barry Boline not to follow orders issued by Voiland. Voiland, speaking to a state investigator two years later, said he didn't feel safe in his office after that and considered having security cameras installed.[4] In 2018, Voiland contended that the courts and county had historically failed to provide funding for the obligation to conduct home studies in child custody cases. Unable to resolve the situation within the county, Voiland escalated his complaints to the state level.[5] Voiland left the bench after declining to run for reelection in the election of April, 2019.

In 2019, Malloy removed 234,000 voters from the statewide rolls, ruling that state law compelled him to do so.[6] The League of Women Voters, to whom Malloy refused to grant standing to intervene in the case,[7] The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which was also denied standing by Malloy, has also filed suit in federal court to halt the contested purging.[7] Wisconsin's Attorney General Josh Kaul also file a notice of appeal to halt the purging, acting on behalf of the state's Elections Commission and requesting to stay of Malloy's order.[8] The issue was brought before the court by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).[7] The Institute is a right-wing organization mostly supported by the Bradley Foundation, which funds such political causes.[7] The lawsuit demanded that the Wisconsin Election Commission respond to a "Movers Report," generated from voter data analysis produced by the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a national, non-partisan partnership funded in 2012 by the Pew Charitable Trusts. ERIC shares voter registration information to improve the accuracy of voter rolls.[9][10]

The report tagged 234,039 voters who may have moved to an address that had not yet been updated on their voter registration forms. Despite thin evidence for removal of that extraordinary number of qualified voters, Wisconsin may be forced to comply with Malloy's order.[11] On January 2, 2020, WILL said it asked the circuit court to hold the Elections Commission in contempt, fining it up to $12,000 daily, until it advances Malloy's December 17, 2019 order to purge from the voting rolls hundreds of thousands of registered voters who possibly have moved to a different address. The case was being litigated in a state appeals court, but it was thought that the conservative-dominated Wisconsin Supreme Court would be likely to support Malloy's ruling.[12] Ozaukee County is heavily Republican, having voted for a Democratic presidential candidate only once after 1936 when it voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964.[13]

The purge was felt to be intentionally targeting voters living in the cities of Madison, and Milwaukee, and college towns, which all exhibit Democratic voting strength.[7] Two of the three plaintiffs in the case heard by Malloy were significant contributors to state Republican party candidates' campaigns, including former state representative and senator, David W. Opitz.[7] Disenfranchisement expert Greg Palast associated the Wisconsin effort at voter purging as being consistent with a national Republican party strategy.[14]

References
  1. Wisconsin Courts - Judges, State of Wisconsin. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  2. Judge Profile: Hon. Paul V. Malloy, Martindale-Hubbell. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  3. Spring election 2015, Wisconsin Elections Commission. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  4. Courthouse spat: Judge prompts investigations, USA Today, Eric Litke, February 27, 2018. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  5. Troubled Ozaukee County Court System Failed To Follow Law, Docs Show, MacIver Institute, Chris Rochester, March 12, 2018. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
  6. Wisconsin judge orders removal of 234,000 voters from state registry, FOX6Now, Amy Dupont, December 13, 2019. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  7. Matthew Rothschild: Elections Commission is right to hold off on voter purge, The Cap Times, Matthew Rothschild, December 19, 2019. Retrieved January 2, 2020.
  8. Effort to stop removal of 234K voter registrations heads to federal court, while attorney general tries to stall purge in state court, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Bruce Vielmetti and Molly Beck, December 17, 2019. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  9. Archived Project, Pew Charitable Trust. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  10. Another Use for A.I.: Finding Millions of Unregistered Voters, New York Times, Steve Lohr, November 5, 2018. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  11. How a Conservative Group Persuaded a Judge to Purge Wisconsin’s Voter Rolls, Slate Magazine, Mark Joseph Stern, December 16, 2019. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  12. Vetterkind, Riley (2 January 2020). "Conservative legal group alleges Elections Commission in contempt of court". Wisconsin State Journal. Retrieved 2020-01-03.
  13. Leip, David. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  14. Hunting Season on Voters Opens with Georgia and Wisconsin Purges and Registration Cancellation, The Guardian, Greg Palast and Zach D. Roberts, January 2, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
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