Ukrainian woman enters deferred prosecution agreement in Mequon school board election fraud

A Ukrainian woman charged with election fraud for voting as a non-citizen at Mequon’s school board election has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.

If Olha Voinovych, 46, complies with the agreement and has no run-ins with law enforcement for the next 18 months, her case will be dismissed and she will avoid a felony conviction on her record, Attorney Michael Maistelman, who's representing Voinovych, said.

On Oct. 2, 2023, Voinovych was charged in Ozaukee County Circuit Court with one felony count of election fraud – voting by a disqualified person.

In April 2023, when detectives informed Voinovych of the case against her, she had no idea her actions were illegal and said she misunderstood the forms, according to a Mequon Police Department report.

She admitted to voting in the election, according to the criminal complaint, but due to Voinovych’s limited English abilities, her daughter-in-law had filled out the forms.

Maistelman said, "Ms. Voinovych's understanding of the English language is non-existent, and this was simply a case of everything getting lost in translation.”

On April 6, 2023, two days after the school board election, the Mequon Police Department received an email from the city clerk that Voinovych, a “temporary visitor” as she appeared in records from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, had voted at the school board election, according to the complaint.

The consequences of an election fraud conviction, a Class I felony, may be a fine of up to $10,000, prison time for up to three and a half years, or both, under Wisconsin state law.

Maistelman said deferred prosecution agreements come in two forms. In one scenario, a person enters a guilty plea, but the sentence is withheld and the case dismissed after successful completion of the agreement terms. In Voinovych's case, the second scenario applies: no guilty plea is entered, but the case remains open until she completes the agreement terms.

Voinovych's terms stipulate she cannot engage in any new criminal law violations or vote without first obtaining citizenship.

Editor's note, 4/15/24: This story has been corrected to clarify that a guilty plea is not required for deferred prosecution.

Contact Claudia Levens at clevens@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @levensc13.