Registration Fraud Takes Advantage Of Security Rules (Wisconsin)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ^ | 10/4/04 | TOM KERTSCHER

[Kryptonite]

Deputy registrar system, intended for accountability, seen as a loophole

A program that should make the state's voter registration system more secure might be partly to blame for possible fraud problems that have surfaced in Racine.

Irregularities with voter registration applications appear to be isolated. But because of the way the deputy registrar program works in Wisconsin, the problems may simply be hidden.

In Racine, the district attorney's office is investigating seven voter registration applications filed by Project Vote in the names of people who said the group never contacted them.

The applications had been filed by Project Vote workers who were certified by Racine as deputy registrars. They completed a city clerk's office class on how to register voters and took an oath to work honestly.

In theory, the deputy registrar program makes voter registration more secure because the applications are being filled out by trained workers.

The program also offers the advantage of streamlining for local election officials: They do not have to see proof of identification from the person being registered if the application is filed by a deputy registrar.

But that advantage works, as the experience in Racine illustrates, only if the deputy registrars are reliable.

Fired Project Vote worker Robert Marquise Blakely of Milwaukee told the Journal Sentinel last week that he had not met with any of the people whose voter registration applications he signed, an apparent violation of state law.

Blakely said he signed the applications filled out by other Project Vote workers because they were not deputy registrars as he was. He said he trusted that they had done their work diligently.

Three of the seven Racine applications being investigated by prosecutors were signed by Blakely. He also signed three other applications that the Racine city clerk's office said contained signatures that looked "suspiciously similar."

The city clerk's office learned of the seven applications that had not been authorized by the people named on them only because it contacted the residents after numerous problems surfaced with applications filed by Project Vote.

The clerk's office was not required to check the identities of the people named because the applications were filed by Blakely and three other Project Vote deputy registrars.

Acting Racine City Clerk Carolyn Moskonas revoked the registrar status of the four Project Vote workers and requested the investigation by the district attorney's office. She said she was concerned about the irregularities but emphasized that the deputy registrar generally has worked well for years.

"It's too bad it happened this way," Moskonas said of the problems, "but that doesn't mean this system is bad."

Moskonas also said she believes that some Project Vote workers were motivated by money - they were paid an hourly salary plus bonuses after meeting a quota - rather than by voter fraud. She pointed out that many of the problem applications were in the names of people who are already registered to vote.

Moskonas and Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the state Elections Board, said the Racine problems do not indicate evidence that any widespread voter fraud could occur in the Nov. 2 election. The Milwaukee Election Commission has referred 21 "suspicious" voter applications to prosecutors, though what problems they contained are not known.

"The fact that we're identifying it now means these people are not going to be on the list and they're not going to get a ballot," Kennedy said of the registration application problems.

Kennedy also emphasized that problems that have surfaced represent a small fraction of what he estimated are 200,000 voter registration applications filed this year. The volume of applications caused Milwaukee to add a shift of workers for processing, beginning this weekend.

Patrick Curley, chief of staff to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, said fraud at the polls is "always a concern." He said that because so many voter registration applications are being submitted, and because some are incomplete, new voters should bring identification with them to the polls to ensure that they can vote.

[Kryptonite]

At least there's been some reporting of the fraud efforts. Now it's time for criminal prosecutions to begin, starting with Robert Marquise Blakely, who admits that he didn't meet with the *people* whose voter registration applications he signed.

[RockinRight]

The Dems are preparing to steal Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, and Oregon.

[Meldrim]

There should be on line access so individuals can check for fraud in their own communities.

[cyn]

the latest.

...are you open to making a "heads up" ping list of most important articles?

[backhoe]

the latest. ...are you open to making a "heads up" ping list of most important articles?

Thanks for the head's up- I'll add it.

I leave the ping lists for others with tougher hide- got tired of all those angry "take me off yer #$%^! list!" emails.

But we all need to be clear about the danger this issue poses-- this is the October Surprise from the Left, and they are not even being subtle about it- why should they, with the compliant media, news & entertainment divisions, on their side.

Besides the obvious goal of throwing the election to Kerry, if that fails, the results will be so contested, so dubious, that President Bush will be vulnerable to all sorts of attacks and stigma- even impeachment.

Further, at some point the public will be burned out on the subject and simply not care enough to set things right.

---

Just FYI, here is the new "click on graphic" I just wrote-- feel free to copy, use, email, etc.

Click the picture & goto "last" for the latest on Vote Fraud:

[hripka]

How Democrats Steal Elections - Top 10 Methods of Liberal Vote Fraud

1. Over-Voting. In Democrat strongholds like St. Louis, Philadelphia and Detroit, some precincts had 100% of their registered voters voting, with 99% of the ballots going to Gore. Clearly, multiple voting resulted in extra tallies for Gore in the 2000 election. (New York Post, 12/09/00).

2. Dead Voters. This classic Democratic method of vote fraud goes all the way back to 1960 in Chicago and Dallas. The 2000 election was no exception. In Miami-Dade County, for example, some of the 144 ineligible votes (those which officials actually admitted to) were cast by dead people, including a Haitian-American who's been deceased since 1977 (Miami-Herald, 12/24/00).

3. Mystery Voters. These "voters" cast votes anyway but are not even registered to vote. In heavily Democratic Broward County, for example, more than 400 ballots were cast by non-registered voters. (Miami-Herald 1/09/01)

4. Military ballots. Many of these votes were disqualified for the most mundane and trivial reasons. At least 1,527 valid military ballots were discarded in Florida by Democratic vote counters (Drudge Report, 11/19/00).

5. Criminals. Felons are a natural Democratic voter and they're protected on voter rolls across the country. In Florida at least 445 ex-convicts - including rapists and murderers -- voted illegally on November 7th. Nearly all of them were registered Democrats. (Miami-Herald 12/01/00)

6. Illegal aliens. These voters have long been a core liberal constituency, especially in California. In Orange County in 1996, Rep. Bob Dornan had his congressional seat stolen from him when thousands of illegal aliens voted for Loretta Sanchez (Christian Science Monitor, 9/2/97).

7. Vote-buying. Purchasing votes has long been a traditional scheme by Democrats, and not just with money. In the 2000 election in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Democratic workers initiate a "smokes-for-votes" campaign in which they paid dozens of homeless men with cigarettes if they cast ballots for Al Gore (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 11/14/00).

8. Phantom Voters. These voters don't really exist, but their ballots do. In the 1996 Lousiana Senate race, GOP candidate Woody Jenkins had the election stolen from him when he discovered that 7,454 actual votes were cast but had no paper trail to authenticate them (Behind the Headlines, F.R. Duplantier, 4/27/97).

9. Dimpled chads. Those infamous punch-cards were a ballot bonanza for Al Gore. Democratic poll workers in Palm Beach, Dade and Broward counties tampered and manipulated thousands of ineligible ballots and counted them for Gore, even though no clear vote could be discerned. (NewsMax.com 11/27, 12/22, 11/18, 11/19/00).

10. Absentee ballots. Normally it's assumed that Republicans benefit from absentee ballots. But in the case of Miami's 1997 mayoral election, hundreds of absentee ballots were made for sale or sent out to non-Miami residents. Fraud was so extensive in the race that the final results were overturned in court (FL Dept. of Law Enforcement Report, 1/5/98)."

SOURCE: http://www.conservativeaction.org/resources.php3?nameid=votefraud

Links on freerepublic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=electionfraud
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=votefraud

WE MUST FIGHT VOTE FRAUD!