EXCLUSIVE-BREAKING We've uncovered evidence that Milw. Election Commission has sent out duplicative absentee ballots to some. Developing.
Two events held in Milwaukee today aimed at rewarding absentee voters could run afoul of Wisconsin law a state election official said today.
The group, Wisconsin Jobs Now! describes itself as a “coalition of community groups, neighborhood associations, faith based organizations and labor united in an effort to bring good jobs to Wisconsin now.”
At two events in the city Monday, Wisconsin Jobs Now! offered free BBQ and prize drawings to people who participate in their absentee voting drive. They promoted the events on their website, action.wisconsinjobsnow.org.
Wisconsin statutes forbid “election bribery,” under 12.11. This includes giving or offering anything of value in exchange for going to the polls.
Steve Pickett, an elections specialist with the Government Accountability Board, told the MacIver News Service that whether this event is legal or not could come down to timing.
“If they walk in with a sticker that says ‘I voted ‘that’s one thing, but if they eat before they vote that’s a problem,” Pickett said. “It’s still a questionable practice one way or the other.”
...[The Wisconsin Jobs Now!] website has been highly critical of Republican Senator Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), and in addition to the get out the vote parties, the organization has been organizing and shuttling voters to Milwaukee’s city hall.
Earlier on Monday, the Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a complaint with the GAB alleging illegal coordination between Citizen Action of Wisconsin and the campaign of Sandy Pasch (D-Millwaukee), Darling’s challenger.
The RPW complaint comes on the revelation by Media Trackers that Pasch sits on the board of directors of Citizen Action of Wisconsin. The Republican Party asked the Government Accountability Board to conduct investigation into whether Sandy Pasch’s membership on the Board of Directors for Citizen Action of Wisconsin violated Section 11.06(7) of the Wisconsin statutes concerning illegal coordination between candidates and independent expenditure organizations.
State election authorities are questioning whether a liberal group broke the law by offering both free food and free rides to vote in a hotly contested Senate recall election.
Although no formal complaint had reached the state Government Accountability Board by Monday afternoon, a spokesman for the agency said it would not be legal to combine free food and transportation to the polls in the same event - even if, as the organization contends, people could take the food without boarding the buses.
Local law enforcement authorities are reportedly looking into the get-out-the-vote "block parties."
Five such parties were sponsored by Wisconsin Jobs Now, a coalition of community and labor groups led by the Service Employees International Union. The coalition describes itself as a nonpartisan organization, although its blog posts have been highly critical of state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), who is defending her seat against Rep. Sandy Pasch (D-Whitefish Bay) in the Aug. 9 recall vote.
Wisconsin Jobs Now held three parties last week and two Monday, all on Milwaukee's northwest side. Each party offered free food, prizes such as t-shirts and stuffed toys, face-painting for children, drawings for school backpacks - and free shuttles to Milwaukee City Hall, where voters could cast absentee ballots in the 8th Senate District contest.
Janet Veum, a spokeswoman for Wisconsin Jobs Now, described the events as "a celebration of voting," aimed at making it easier to vote for low-income and minority groups who might face more challenges under the state's new photo identification law.
...State law prohibits anyone from offering a voter any inducement to vote or not vote. Veum said her group believed it was complying with the law because no one was required to take the rides or vote to get the food and prizes.
But "that's a distinction without a difference," said Reid Magney, spokesman for the accountability board. He said it was legal to offer rides to the polls, or free food at picnics to talk about issues, but not in the same event.
Magney said his agency had not received any complaints about the parties and that enforcing the law would be up to the Milwaukee County district attorney's office.
Milwaukee- Media Trackers filed complaints this morning with the Government Accountability Board and the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office alleging illegal election and electioneering activities on the part of Wisconsin Jobs Now!
"We are confident that the GAB and the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office will take our complaints serious," remarked Brian Sikma, communications director for Media Trackers. "The evidence that we reported on our website and that our sources gave us all point to multiple violations of election law on the part of Wisconsin Jobs Now! It is time for Wisconsin Jobs Now! to be held accountable for such flagrant violations of the law."
"Because the actions of Wisconsin Jobs Now! are so despicable, we are calling on the Sandy Pasch and Alberta Darling campaigns to also file complaints with the GAB and the Milwaukee County DA's office," stated Sikma. "What took place yesterday is an affront to both campaigns and, more importantly, to the voters in Senate District 8." Sikma continued saying, "If the candidates truly wish to state their frustration with these illegal actions and distance themselves from such tactics, they should file complaints calling for a formal GAB investigation of Wisconsin Jobs Now!"
WisconsinJobs Now! on the afternoon of August 1st hosted two events in northern Milwaukee County where voters were given a free barbeque chicken dinner and raffle tickets in exchange for showing up to vote. Participants were transported to the Milwaukee City Hall in vans with Wisconsin Jobs Now! logos on the side. Once at City Hall, volunteers wearing Wisconsin Jobs Now! t-shirts stood inside the Milwaukee Election Commission office and explained how the voting would work. Media Trackers secured first-hand reports and evidence of these activities.
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: [I]f you go back to the year 2000, when we had an obvious disaster and - and saw that our voting process needed refinement, and we did that in the America Votes Act and made sure that we could iron out those kinks, now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally - and very transparently - block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it's nothing short of that blatant.
While dining out last week, I periodically looked up at one of the television monitors to see the score of the first game of the NBA finals. As there was no sound on to interrupt diners' conversations, the monitor was in caption mode: One could read rather than hear the words spoken. At the conclusion of the game, an announcer was interviewing a member of the victorious Miami Heat players. I saw from the captions the player saying the words "they isn't."
Closed captions display the words spoken. They don't correct for poor grammar.
All I could think was: How can a grown man in America today say "they isn't" rather than "they aren't"?
First, how is it possible for anyone to graduate an American elementary school, not to mention a high school or, most incredibly, attend college, and leave with an inability to conjugate the verb "to be"?
Second, has anyone -- a parent or another relative, a teacher, a friend, a coach -- in that player's life ever corrected his grammar?
I assume that the answer to the second question is "No."
And I assume that the answers to both questions are related: The left, which dominates our culture and educational institutions, has too often lowered standards for black Americans. Even worse, it has declared that if you are black, "they isn't" is not only not to be corrected, but many in academia have declared it an acceptable form of English, i.e., Ebonics, or Black English.
It doesn't end.
I saw "they isn't" the same week the Democrats and others on the left virtually unanimously condemned all Republican attempts in state legislatures to pass legislation requiring voters to show a photo ID. The Democrats labeled it a means of "disenfranchising" blacks. Many Democrats compared it to Jim Crow laws.
"Jim Crow, move over -- the Wisconsin Republicans have taken your place," charged Wisconsin Democratic State Sen. Bob Jauch, referring to his state's new voter ID law.
It is hard to imagine a more demeaning statement about black America than labeling demands that all voters show a photo ID anti-black.
This is easily demonstrated. Imagine if some Democratic politician had announced that demanding a photo ID at the voting booth was an attempt to keep Jewish Americans from voting. No one would understand what the person was talking about. But why not? Jews vote almost as lopsidedly Democrat as do blacks. So why weren't Jews included in liberal objections to voter ID laws?
We all know the answer. Jews are generally considered intelligent and therefore no one would assume that obtaining a photo ID was demanding too much of even poor Jews (yes, there are poor Jews). Therefore, one can only infer that the argument that demanding photo ID for voting will disenfranchise many blacks suggests that many blacks lack the capacity to obtain a photo ID.
If that is not a legitimate inference, then only one other inference is possible: The argument is made solely in order to score political points by portraying black Americans as victims of Republican racism. Of course, that argument simply takes us back to the original question: Why does requiring a photo ID to vote prevent blacks from voting?
It is, however, effective. Calling Republicans racist has worked for half a century and will not be abandoned until it is universally recognized as the libel that it is.
[I]f you go back to the year 2000, when we had an obvious disaster and - and saw that our voting process needed refinement, and we did that in the America Votes Act and made sure that we could iron out those kinks, now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally - and very transparently - block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it's nothing short of that blatant.
Jim Crow was the wrong analogy to use. But I don't regret calling attention to the efforts in a number of states with Republican dominated legislatures, including Florida, to restrict access to the ballot box for all kinds of voters, but particularly young voters, African Americans and Hispanic Americans.
People using social media such as Facebook and Twitter to buy and sell public food assistance benefits are cheating the vast majority of honest recipients who need help. State officials need to put an end to this practice - and one way to do so is to require photos on the FoodShare Quest card. Emergency cards need some level of security as well.
For some FoodShare users, this may create a hardship, especially for those who are elderly or sick. Those with greater needs should be given the ability to have a family member or friend use their card.
But right now, all anyone who uses a Quest card needs is a four-digit pin number. Those who report their cards lost or stolen and qualify for an emergency card should have to have that card verified by identification as well. Without verification, that card is as good as cash - and in the wrong hands can be sold, used for drugs or traded for alcohol.
Senate Republicans approved requiring people to show photo ID at the polls amid a cacophonous vote Thursday, with eight Democrats not even voting on the measure in protest and because of confusion over how the proceedings were conducted.
Immediately afterward, the crowd in the Senate gallery thundered with chants of "Shame!" as Republicans exited the chamber. Later, they chanted, "Recall!" and sang, "We Shall Overcome."
Republican Gov. Scott Walker quickly announced he would sign the bill Wednesday in a ceremony at the Capitol.
"Requiring photo identification to vote will go a long way to eliminate the threat of voter fraud," Walker said in a statement. "If you need an ID to buy cold medicine, it's reasonable to require it to vote."
But Democrats decried the measure, saying it would do little to prevent voter fraud while disenfranchising thousands of minority, elderly and rural voters.
"This is voter suppression," said Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee). "This is voter disenfranchisement. This is voter confusion. This is voter restriction. This is a voter discouragement bill."
Before debate began at 10 a.m., Senate Republican leaders imposed a one-hour limit on discussion of the bill, frustrating Democrats who engaged in more than nine hours of debate on the bill Tuesday into Wednesday.
When the time came to vote, Sen. Fred Risser (D-Madison) - the longest-serving state legislator in the country - refused to stop speaking, saying he had already been recognized. Senate President Mike Ellis (R-Neenah) then ordered the roll call vote on the bill.
"In my 50 years, I've never had anyone cut me off!" Risser yelled.
He continued to calmly speak against the bill as the roll call vote was conducted.
Meanwhile, Democrats attempted to adjourn the Senate proceedings without taking a vote on the photo ID bill. They were ignored.
"You're not following the rules, Mr. President!" Risser yelled at Ellis.
Ellis shot back: "Read the (rule) book!"
The bill passed 19-5. Eight Democrats did not vote on it as they argued with Ellis about how the vote was being conducted. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said they will be able to record their votes in June, when the Senate next meets.
The Assembly late Wednesday approved requiring people to show photo ID at the polls, putting the measure on a fast track to becoming law. The Senate is expected to sign off on the plan Tuesday.
The move comes when drivers are about to have to present more documentation to get their licenses and wait longer to get them.
The Assembly passed the bill 60-35 amid shouts from a small group of protesters in the viewing gallery.
"Welcome to Wisconsin, Jim Crow!" one of them shouted. The Republican-run Assembly quickly adjourned as the protesters chanted "Shame!" and were led out of the gallery by police officers.
Democrats Peggy Krusick of Milwaukee and Tony Staskunas of West Allis joined all Republicans in approving the bill.
In a change that's separate from the photo ID legislation, drivers will soon have to present more documents proving their identity to get licenses under a federal anti-terrorism law. And instead of receiving their licenses when they visit a Division of Motor Vehicles office, they will get them a week to 10 days later in the mail.
Gov. Scott Walker is a longtime supporter of requiring photo ID to vote. His fellow Republicans have pushed the idea for a decade but have been blocked by Democrats.
...On the Assembly floor Wednesday, Republicans argued that requiring ID at the polls would prevent voter fraud and boost confidence in elections.
"That is a travesty to have your vote stolen from you," said Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon).
Democrats said the measure would have no effect on voter fraud while making it harder for poor, elderly, minority and rural residents to vote. They said that no widespread voter fraud has ever been uncovered in Wisconsin.
The latest version of a bill requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls would make sweeping changes to Wisconsin elections - moving the September primary to August, tightening rules on absentee ballots and ending straight-ticket voting.
A hearing on the bill is slated for 10 a.m. Wednesday, and Republicans who run the Assembly will meet in private later in the day to discuss any changes to the measure.
Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) said his caucus is largely behind the latest version by Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale), but may want to tweak it. He said he hopes to pass the bill in May and forward it to the Senate.
Stone's bill leaves in place the ability of people to register at the polls. Some Republicans have wanted to eliminate election-day registration, but Stone said he did not believe they needed to take that step.
"This is going to go a long way to restoring confidence in elections," Stone said of his bill.
Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) decried the plan, saying the photo ID measure and changes to absentee voting laws would make it harder to vote while not preventing voter fraud.
"This is just consistent with what we've been seeing all session - extreme overreach in trying to take away people's rights," she said. "It's another assault on average Wisconsinites, but particularly on those most vulnerable."
It's been said that once trust goes out of a relationship, it's pretty much over.
What does that say about the state of Wisconsin politics these days?
At a public hearing on Gov. Scott Walker's two-year budget at State Fair Park on Monday, I talked to several people in attendance who didn't trust the Joint Finance Committee's decision to hold the event during daytime hours, when many working people were at their jobs.
Some suspected it was all a GOP plot to keep attendance low in the Milwaukee area for a hearing that was likely to draw thousands more if held at night.
Members of the Joint Finance Committee apparently didn't trust that local residents who registered to speak could keep their comments brief. A timekeeper kept reminding citizens about the 2-minute speaker's limit, including by holding up a sign when there were just 30 seconds remaining.
It's fair to say, after an election where both sides found reason to grumble, the mistrust factor is off the charts.
Democrats don't trust Walker when he says his budget-repair bill was designed to balance the budget and wasn't meant to kill public unions. Republicans don't trust Democrats, who they think are set on trying to paint the governor's proposed cost-cutting moves as disastrous to the state.
After last week's election, many voters weren't ready to trust the stunning news that 14,000 votes were mistakenly left out of the vote total in the state Supreme Court race in Waukesha County.
They didn't trust the electoral process enough to accept that it could have just been human error by a county clerk.
The main reason they felt that way was because they figured if the situation were reversed, the other side wouldn't trust them, either.
A Park Ave. philanthropist accused of bribing homeless people in Milwaukee to vote for Al Gore in November has agreed to pay a $5,000 fine to settle her case.
Constance Milstein was in Milwaukee on the weekend before the Nov. 7 election to help Gore's presidential campaign drum up votes in hotly contested Wisconsin when a TV crew filmed her giving out packs of cigarettes, worth $3.25 each, to homeless men who had cast absentee ballots.
Prosecutors said that in handing out 10 packs of cigarettes, Milstein violated a Wisconsin election law that makes it a felony to induce someone to vote by providing anything worth more than $1.
But Kurt Benkley, an assistant district attorney for Milwaukee County, said prosecutors did not have enough evidence to file a criminal complaint against her because some witnesses had alcohol problems and many were difficult to locate.
Instead, the state filed a civil complaint.
Tim Metz, Milstein's spokesman, said, "She never had any idea she was doing anything wrong."
Michael Pratt, 33, and Lewis Caldwell, 29, were each sentenced to six months in jail while Lavelle Mohammad, 36, got five months and Sowande Omokunde, 26, got four months. Each was also fined $1,000. They will be eligible for work release and were allowed to surrender to begin their sentences within two weeks.
Pratt is the son of former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt and Omokunde is the son of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.)
"My best recollection is that I was splitting my time between Wisconsin and Illinois, and it's possible I made a mistake."
Which brings us to the ultimate sign of mistrust for some.
Republicans in Madison are proposing a photo ID bill to combat voter fraud that has often been couched in terms of giving the public more confidence in the electoral process.
After what happened in Waukesha County last week, it's fair to say voter confidence is probably at a low ebb. And as some pointed out, a photo ID bill would have done nothing to prevent the fiasco.
Judging from my recent mail, there is apparently a hard-core group of readers who get outraged whenever election officials in Republican strongholds are accused of wrongdoing but have no problem claiming residents of the Democratic-leaning inner city routinely commit voter fraud.
I think the results of last week's election demonstrated that most voters want their voices heard and will turn out in large numbers to exercise that right. We don't have to trust each other, but at the very least we have to trust that the system works.
April 8, 2011
The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
Dear Attorney General Holder:
For our democracy to endure, we, the people, must have faith in its laws and system of justice, including faith that our elections for public office are fair and free from any manipulation or tampering. Following this week's election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, numerous constituents have contacted me expressing serious doubt that this election was a free and fair one. They fear, as I do, that political interests are manipulating the results.
The following information was reported by the Associated Press with additional reporting by the Wisconsin State Journal staff, on Friday, April 8:---On Wednesday morning, April 6, with 100% of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press, JoAnne Kloppenburg appeared to beat incumbent David Prosser for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court by a slim (204 vote) margin out of 1.5 million votes cast.
---Late Thursday afternoon, April 7, the Waukesha County Clerk, Kathy Nickolaus, announced at a press conference that she "failed to save on her computer and then report 14,315 votes in the city of Brookfield, omitting them entirely in an unofficial total she released after Tuesday's election." Nickolaus blamed this on "human error."
---These new votes would give Prosser a roughly 7,500 vote lead in the race – almost exactly the number needed to deny an automatic, government-funded recount.
---Nickolaus said she discovered the error on Wednesday, April 6. She said she entered the numbers into the system and failed to hit "save." She further explained that when she came in to upload the information for the statewide canvass, she noticed all of the fields and columns for the City of Brookfield results were blank.
---The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that last year, Waukesha County officials raised objections to Nickolaus' practice of storing election data on computers in her office rather than on the county's computer network. Nickolaus said this practice was aimed at keeping the data more secure. However, this practice prevented the county's information technology specialists from verifying the system was fail-safe, the county's director of administration said at the time. Auditors later recommended that Nickolaus improve security and backup procedures.
---The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reported that Nickolaus, who worked for seven years as a data analyst and computer specialist for the Wisconsin Assembly Republican Caucus, headed up an effort to develop a computer program that averaged the performance of Republicans in statewide races by ward. During some of that time, David Prosser served as Assembly Speaker, meaning he was essentially Nickolaus' boss.
---In 2001, Nickolaus was granted immunity to testify about her role as a computer analyst for the Wisconsin Assembly Republican Caucus, then under investigation for using state resources to secretly run campaigns.
I share the concerns of my constituents that these reports raise serious doubts as to the integrity of the electoral process in Waukesha County and, by extension, our entire state.
To ensure that the April 5th election for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice is free, fair, and transparent, and to uphold faith in our democracy for ourselves and future generations, I ask for your immediate assistance in investigating these election inconsistencies in Wisconsin.
Specifically, I urge you to immediately assign the Justice Department Public Integrity Section, which oversees the federal prosecution of election crimes, to investigate the questionable handling of vote records in Waukesha County, Wisconsin.
We, the people, must be assured that our votes are fairly counted and reported and our democracy remains intact and untainted.
Sincerely,
Tammy Baldwin
Member of Congress
Justice David Prosser's campaign said Saturday that it was open to a recount of votes in Waukesha County as the state Supreme Court race remained without a declared winner.
"If you need to do a recount in Waukesha (County) and Waukesha (County) alone to satisfy heightened interest, that's fine," said Prosser campaign manager Brian Nemoir. "We believe it will only affirm the margin of victory we now enjoy."
The Prosser campaign said Saturday a federal investigation was unnecessary.
"We don't believe there is need for that," said Brian Neimor, the campaign manager for Prosser. "It’s certainly well within their rights to ask for that. In the end, now that the canvassing results have been reported to the Government Accountability Board, it will be evident that the mistake that was made was a reporting error to the media. That hardly seems like a punishable crime."
Neimor said the campaign was open to a recount of the ballots in Waukesha County
...Kloppenburg's campaign manager Melissa Mulliken said, "from our point of view the process here is ongoing."
Give us your felons, your frauds, your fakes, yearning to vote free and frequently.
The majority of the issues cited in the report seem to be record keeping issues, which makes the possibility for voter fraud that much greater.
The report indicates 5,300 more ballots were cast than voters recorded, and it cites 1,305 unenterable on-site registration cards in Milwaukee as a possible reason for this voter gap.
Some of the onsite cards didn't have addresses in Milwaukee. Some weren't signed, and some didn't even have names.
...It states that 785 on-site registered voters had cards registered without dates of birth.
1305 people were found with "un-enterable" on-site registration cards due to valid addresses, names, identifications, signatures, voter numbers, illegibilities or lack of home in the City of Milwaukee.
41% of them voted.
55 people on the "un-enterable" list were found to live outside the city of Milwaukee on the date of the election. The investigation says that even if there was no criminal intent on any part of these people to vote incorrectly, it still proved that election inspectors were not following state laws properly in these cases.
One case involved someone from Chicago who registered to vote by simply placing on their registration card an address of a friend with whom they were staying on West Pierce Street in Milwaukee.
Another used a Journal Sentinel newspaper as proof of residency. Others placed suburbs of Wauwatosa and Greenfield on their address listing, but poll inspectors allowed them to vote in Milwaukee.
...Investigators discovered that 220 felons voted in the city of Milwaukee during the 2004 elections.
...The MPD investigation also found five felons who worked as election inspectors. It says that Kimberly Prude, one of the felons indicted by the U.S. Attorney's ofice, actually registered on-site voters. Additionally, the election commission gave the names of 18 convicted felons who worked as deputy registrars.
1. Eliminate on-site same day voter registration.
2. Require government-issued identification, such as a photo ID or a social security card, to vote.
About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.
Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow members of Saint Mary’s Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.
The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn’t get one but came to the precinct anyway.
“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, ‘I don’t want to go do that,”‘ Sister McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
The convent will make “a very concerted effort” to get proper identification for the nuns in time for the general election. “We’re going to take from now until November to get them out and get this done.
“You can’t do this like school kids on a bus,” she said. “I wish we could.”
Following a 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday upholding Indiana's strict voter ID law, the state Legislature and the governor should resist efforts to enact such a law here.
Such a law would be antithetical to Wisconsin's long tradition of high voter turnout, spurred by having as few obstacles as possible to citizens exercising their right to the ballot.
The court majority downplayed both the obstacles that a photo ID requirement will impose and the obvious partisan motivation for wanting such a requirement.
The dissenting justices got it right. Without a valid state photo ID or passport, it is no small feat to get one - if, for instance, you don't have a birth certificate or other official documentation handy to prove identity, don't know how to go about getting them and have uneven access to the money and transportation to make all this happen.
...The court said the Indiana law is non-discriminatory. However, to get there the justices had to ignore who are most likely not to have photo IDs. That would be the elderly, the poor and minority groups, folks who tend to vote Democratic.
The court dispensed with the partisan underpinnings of voter ID laws much too easily. Arguments for the law "should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote.
In other words, even though widespread voter fraud doesn't exist in Indiana, Wisconsin or in the rest of the nation, we still should ignore that hurdles have just been placed, mostly by GOP legislators, before traditionally disadvantaged groups that - wink, wink - just happen to vote for the other party.
The Supreme Court ruled today that states may require voters to present photo identification before casting ballots, upholding a Republican-backed measure that proponents say combats voter fraud and opponents believe discourages voter participation.
The court ruled 6-3 that the requirements enacted by Indiana's legislature were not enough of a burden to invoke constitutional protections. Because the state's law is generally regarded as the nation's strictest, the ruling bodes well for other states that have required photo ID.
"The application of the statute to the vast majority of Indiana voters is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
Three conservative justices -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. -- agreed with the outcome but would have made it even more difficult for voters in states with photo-identification laws to challenge them.
Three liberal justices -- David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer -- dissented.
...When the law was upheld by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, the dissenting Democratic-appointed judge called it a "not-too-thinly veiled attempt" to discourage voters who skew Democratic.
Stevens noted that it was "fair" to infer that "partisan considerations may have played a significant role" in Indiana's decision to pass the law.
"But if a nondiscriminatory law is supported by valid neutral justifications, those justifications should not be disregarded simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators," he wrote.
"Everything we have been calling for is constitutional," said Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale), who has long pushed for a voter ID law in Wisconsin.
...Since taking office in 2003, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has vetoed bills three times that would have required voters to show photo ID at the polls, saying it would disenfranchise poor and elderly voters. Republicans frustrated by the vetoes moved to amend the state constitution, which does not require the governor's approval.
But that move was stalled last year, when Democrats took over the state Senate. To amend the constitution, a resolution must be approved by lawmakers in two consecutive legislative sessions and then by voters in a statewide referendum.
Lawmakers gave initial approval to the resolution in 2006, when Republicans controlled both houses.
But Senate Democrats refused to take up the measure again in the latest legislative session. The Senate is not expected to address the matter before the November elections, meaning that the entire process would have to start over again in January.
"It's time for the Senate to allow the people of Wisconsin to have a voice on this," Stone said. "The real question is why the Senate doesn't want to allow for clean, fair and accurate elections in Wisconsin."
Parisi said voter fraud it isn't as common as photo ID supporters claim it is, and that part of maintaining election integrity involves making it possible for as many people who are eligible to cast ballots.
1. Eliminate on-site same day voter registration.
2. Require government-issued identification, such as a photo ID or a social security card, to vote.
Wisconsin Senate Republicans tried but failed Thursday to get a vote on making people show photo ID’s at the polls.
Eighteen Democrats voted not to bring up the proposed constitutional amendment and 14 Republicans stood firm in demanding it.
The GOP says voters must identify themselves better to stop fraud. They pointed to a new Milwaukee Police report which outlined numerous problems with the 2004 presidential election.
Democrats have fought off voter ID’s for years, saying it prevents the poor and young adults from casting ballots.
Earlier Thursday a couple Senate Democrats interrupted a news conference the GOP was holding to demand a vote on the measure.
Sen. Spencer Coggs, D-Milwaukee, took issue with the police report.
He said his committee never brought up the matter because it would disenfranchise voters.
"My best recollection is that I was splitting my time between Wisconsin and Illinois and it's possible I made a mistake."
OBAMA, Japan, March 4 (AP) -- The city of Obama, a small coastal city in central Japan where many people are known to be supporting U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama because he happens to share the same name, has received a letter from the U.S. senator addressed to Mayor Toshio Murakami, city officials said Tuesday.
In the letter dated Feb. 21, Obama thanked the city for its support and said, "I am touched by your friendly gesture." The mayor sent a letter to Obama along with lacquered chopsticks, a local specialty, in January last year. Another letter was sent last month along with a "daruma" doll for wishing him victory.
"We share more than a common name; we share a common planet and common responsibilities," said Obama, who is battling Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
On Wednesday, local tourism association members and other people are planning to hold a rally to express their support for Obama.
A Milwaukee police investigation of a badly managed general election in 2004 describes a litany of, well, bad management.
This is old news. The Journal Sentinel has reported extensively on this, and, shortly after the 2004 election, a city task force noted many of the same problems.
But here's what you should consider if you agree with the report's recommendations to eliminate same-day registration and create a voter ID requirement. The city and the state have had at least two major elections since 2004. There was the 2006 November election and the state primary election earlier this month. Both had good turnouts, and both went swimmingly.
"No significant issues" arose, says Kevin Kennedy, legal director of the state Government Accountability Board.
The reasons: The database the City of Milwaukee used in 2004 was independent of a statewide voter database. It is no longer.
Also, as both Kennedy and Mayor Tom Barrett note, much more training has occurred for those who work the polls. The city, Barrett says, has increased the Elections Commission budget by $600,000 over the past 2 1/2 years.
This new report specifically points to "the inability of election inspectors to check the eligibility of voters" and "in other cases, the reluctance of election inspectors to check the eligibility of a voter . . . on the day of the election."
It then recommends eliminating same-day registration, and, if that doesn't occur, requiring "the presentation of a government-issued identification card." Almost as an afterthought, the report recommends, "in the absence of any substantive change," that election inspectors be given "adequate training and resources" to do their jobs well.
Fortunately, cooler heads already moved that final and best recommendation to the front of the line a while ago. They did so because, as the report seems to document, true incidences of voter fraud were few. Simply, they do not warrant disenfranchising those eligible voters who might have difficulty securing the documents needed for government ID. And the statewide voter registration system has eliminated many of the bad records at the root of the problem.
The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 requires all states to have a centralized statewide voter registration system. To identify individuals who are ineligible to vote, the Elections Board planned to match data in the system with data maintained by the departments of Corrections (DOC), Health and Family Services (DHFS), and Transportation (DOT).
However, electronic matching failed for the November 2006 general election and the spring 2007 election. As a result, the Elections Board took other action to identify ineligible individuals. For example, it provided municipal clerks with paper lists of 35,013 individuals who were ineligible to vote in November 2006 because they were serving felony sentences, including probation or parole.
We found that 16 municipal clerks we contacted did not use the lists consistently. We also found that the lists included 1,537 individuals whose sentences ended before Election Day and who were likely eligible to vote.
Elections Board officials now believe that the data matching will not work during Wisconsin’s presidential primary in February 2008. The Elections Board is contemplating legal action against the vendor that developed the $22.7 million statewide voter registration system.
Municipal clerks we contacted noted problems with the statewide voter registration system’s ability to process absentee ballots and suspend voter registrations. Close scrutiny is warranted because of these implementation difficulties and the Elections Board’s dispute with the vendor.
The Elections Board mails address verification cards to verify the accuracy of addresses provided by individuals registering to vote by certain methods, such as on Election Day. Undeliverable cards are returned by the postal service to municipal clerks, who are responsible for reviewing them and determining whether to designate individuals as ineligible to vote. We followed up on concerns in our 2005 audit, which found that cards were not consistently used as required to verify residency or investigate improper registrations.
In October 2006, the Elections Board mailed 106,620 cards to registered voters. We reviewed 874 cards returned to nine municipal clerks and found that the clerks had received them too late for review before the November 2006 general election.
The Elections Board had not yet promulgated the administrative rules as of August 2007 but indicated that it is working to do so. In addition, it has trained municipal clerks in election procedures since August 2007, although officials were unable to provide information indicating the number of clerks who have completed the training.
We questioned 16 municipal clerks about the usefulness of training they received from the Elections Board on using the statewide voter registration system. Three of the 16 municipal clerks rely on their county clerks to manage the statewide voter registration system and, therefore, did not attend the training; 7 indicated they were adequately trained, and 6 indicated they were not.
Voter ID might catch that isolated individual intent on casting more than one vote, but it could bar others from voting. Eliminating same-day registration might make things easier, but the likely trade-off is fewer people voting.
Can it get better? Certainly. But let's concentrate on fixing the system rather than devising unfair or self-defeating work-arounds.
The report, which covers many issues first reported by the Journal Sentinel in early 2005, provides a look at the level to which police investigated the problems, which included a gap of several thousand more votes counted than people recorded as having voted.
The report comes long after criminal investigations by the Milwaukee County district attorney's office and the U.S. attorney's office have been closed. Thus, instead of providing further guidance to prosecutors, the 67-page document may be more useful to election officials in identifying problems with the system heading into this fall's presidential election.
Neil Albrecht, the deputy director of the city Election Commission, said the report "validates" the efforts by a city task force, appointed by Mayor Tom Barrett, to review election procedures. All recommendations of that task force have been implemented, he said.
U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic has said investigators found no evidence of widespread fraud. About a dozen cases, including felons who illegally voted or people who allegedly voted twice, were prosecuted, with spotty results.
In some cases, the report highlights sloppiness by poll workers, or in clerks entering data.
Translation: CYA mission complete.
My take: CYA mission is an embarrassment as well as a failure.
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What is the 67 page "Report of the Investigation into the November 2, 2004 General Election in Milwaukee"?
---It is proof that voter fraud in Milwaukee is very, very real.
---It is proof that instances of voter fraud in Milwaukee in the November 2, 2004 election were not rare.
---It is proof that Milwaukee citizens are disenfranchised by a state government that permits same day, on-site, no photo ID voter registration.
---It is proof that Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is clueless and/or crooked.
---It is proof that U.S. Representative Gwen Moore is clueless and/or crooked.
---It is proof that Democrat Wisconsin state representatives and senators are clueless and/or crooked.
---It is proof that Governor Jim Doyle, who VETOED a bill that provided for FREE voter photo IDs, is clueless and/or crooked.
---It is proof that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board is a shill for Democrats and complicit in the disenfranchisement of Milwaukeeans and Wisconsinites by consistently objecting to proposals to ensure the integrity of Wisconsin’s elections.
Most importantly, the "Report of the Investigation into the November 2, 2004 General Election in Milwaukee" is an invitation.
It is an invitation to all interested in stealing elections.
Give us your felons, your frauds, your fakes, yearning to vote free and frequently.
The majority of the issues cited in the report seem to be record keeping issues, which makes the possibility for voter fraud that much greater.
The report indicates 5,300 more ballots were cast than voters recorded, and it cites 1,305 unenterable on-site registration cards in Milwaukee as a possible reason for this voter gap.
Some of the onsite cards didn't have addresses in Milwaukee. Some weren't signed, and some didn't even have names.
...It states that 785 on-site registered voters had cards registered without dates of birth.
1305 people were found with "un-enterable" on-site registration cards due to valid addresses, names, identifications, signatures, voter numbers, illegibilities or lack of home in the City of Milwaukee.
41% of them voted.
55 people on the "un-enterable" list were found to live outside the city of Milwaukee on the date of the election. The investigation says that even if there was no criminal intent on any part of these people to vote incorrectly, it still proved that election inspectors were not following state laws properly in these cases.
One case involved someone from Chicago who registered to vote by simply placing on their registration card an address of a friend with whom they were staying on West Pierce Street in Milwaukee.
Another used a Journal Sentinel newspaper as proof of residency. Others placed suburbs of Wauwatosa and Greenfield on their address listing, but poll inspectors allowed them to vote in Milwaukee.
...Investigators discovered that 220 felons voted in the city of Milwaukee during the 2004 elections.
...The MPD investigation also found five felons who worked as election inspectors. It says that Kimberly Prude, one of the felons indicted by the U.S. Attorney's ofice, actually registered on-site voters. Additionally, the election commission gave the names of 18 convicted felons who worked as deputy registrars.
1. Eliminate on-site same day voter registration.
2. Require government-issued identification, such as a photo ID or a social security card, to vote.
WASHINGTON -- There are many ways to lose a Supreme Court case, and by the end of an argument that was before the court on Wednesday, the Democrats who were challenging Indiana’s voter-identification law appeared poised to lose theirs in a potentially sweeping way, with implications for many future election cases.
The justices’ questioning indicated that a majority did not accept the challengers’ basic argument — that voter-impersonation fraud is not a problem, so requiring voters to produce government-issued photo identification at the polls is an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.
The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue of voter identification today. It should side with the position that enables as many people as possible to vote.
It should see the effort to impose voter ID as a transparent attempt by Republicans to dampen voter turnout by a segment of the electorate that tends to vote Democratic. Fraud - what supporters say a requirement to show photo ID when voting is intended to combat - simply isn't such a problem that it demands this solution. Milwaukee's election problems in 2004 were principally about resources and record-keeping, not about voter identification.
...In Wisconsin, which has same-day registration, registered voters need not show any photo ID at the polls. But to register, they need to produce a document that shows they live in the ward or district in which they are voting. If they can't provide a driver's license number, they can, for instance, give the last four digits of their Social Security number. Or they can attest that they have none of that and still get to vote.
Surprise, Wisconsin traditionally ranks high among the states in voter turnout. That turnout, we suspect, is what proponents of voter ID are really targeting. Sure, that likely means opponents want to get more Democrats to the polls. But one direction could lead to fewer people voting and the other more. It's that simple.
...So go get one is the usual retort. But cost (unless they're free) and transportation to do that are obstacles for many. In any case, why would we want to provide any disincentive for those eligible to vote in the first place?
The message, intended or not, is that some eligible people don't deserve the vote. That's unacceptable.
From the early indications, Americans are feeling enthusiastic about their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. The Supreme Court should encourage, not frustrate, that enthusiasm when it hears a challenge today to a harsh voter identification law adopted by Indiana. The law aims to be an anti-fraud measure, but its main impact will be to disenfranchise large numbers of registered voters. The court should not let it stand.
The idea of asking voters for ID may not sound unreasonable, but the devil is in the exclusionary details. Before the 2005 law, Indiana voters simply had to sign in at the polls and their signatures were compared to the ones on file. Now voters must present a current government-issued photo ID, generally a driver’s license.
The impact of that requirement falls unequally. Poor people, racial minorities and the elderly are especially unlikely to have driver’s licenses or other forms of ID required under the law.
A man who voted twice in the November 2006 election and was convicted of two felonies after arguing unsuccessfully that it happened because of a memory lapse, was sentenced to a year in the county House of Correction this morning by Milwaukee Circuit Judge William W. Brash III.
"This is, from this court's perspective, a lifeblood issue," Brash told Michael A. Zore of his offense. "It is what we are as a people."
Zore, 45, was ordered to serve two years' probation, with the first year behind bars without work or other daytime release. He is eligible for good-behavior release from the HOC, which could come as soon as eight months into the sentence. Zore is to report to the House of Correction Jan. 2.
If he breaks probation, a stayed sentence of 18 months in prison and 12 on extended supervision will be invoked. He had faced the possibility of up to 7 years in prison.
Sure, Michael Zore told police, he'd voted twice in last November's election, using the city hall polling stations of two different Milwaukee County suburbs in the space of six hours.
The evidence against him included him signing up to vote using a false address in West Allis, after he'd already voted in Wauwatosa.
But Zore, 44, told a jury Wednesday there was a good reason he shouldn't be convicted of felony counts of double voting and giving a poll worker false information:
He forgot.
...[Zore's lawyer Raymond M.] Clark's "stress defense" claimed Zore was so tense - from his sister's death a week before, from the garnishment of his wages to pay back taxes, from his divorce a year before, and from the cancellation of a master's degree class on election day - that when he found himself, after an errand, in West Allis across the street from City Hall, he forgot he'd already voted.
...[Assistant District Attorney Bruce] Landgraf derided both a psychological assessment that indicated Zore was liable to forget things - a tendency stress can exacerbate - and what Landgraf said was an ever-growing set of reasons Zore claimed he was stressed.
...Landgraf said Zore would have had to be "in something of a fugue state . . . with his own personal reality" to forget that he'd voted in the space of a few hours.
A psychologist's assessment, done as part of Zore's defense efforts, hadn't noted that Zore was disassociated with reality, Landgraf said.
"He's as sane as you or I," the prosecutor said.
In Zore's defense, Clark tried to convince the jury they couldn't read intent into the actions of a man whom friends called forgetful and who was stressed by both his life's woes and a $22,000 income, which, Clark said, was low enough that "it generates stress" for Zore.
