[Wisconsin AG] Van Hollen Sues State Accountability Board Over Registration Checks (Voter Fraud)

Wisconsin State Journal ^ | September 10, 2008 | Mark Pitsch

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Saying illegal Wisconsin votes could sway the presidential election, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has sued the state elections agency to force ineligible voters off the rolls.

But election experts warned that if the Justice Department lawsuit is successful, eligible voters could be disenfranchised and the state could face a post-election ballot-counting frenzy similar to Florida's after the 2000 presidential race.

"You shouldn't penalize the voter because you've got mistakes in your database," said Dan Tokaji, an election law expert at Ohio State University. "That's the absolute worst thing to do."

The suit filed in Dane County Circuit Court on Wednesday is believed to be the only one of its kind in the country, according to Tokaji and other national election experts.

In it, Van Hollen asks the court to force the Government Accountability Board to check voter registrations for accuracy dating back to Jan. 1, 2006, when the state was supposed to be in compliance with the federal Help America Vote Act.

But the state missed that deadline and Van Hollen argues new voters were able to register without undergoing the federally required accuracy check.

The board said last month that it had finally reached compliance with the law, which is designed to ensure that only eligible voters' ballots are counted at the polls. The board also said it would only check new registrations for accuracy dating to Aug. 6.

But Van Hollen said limiting the checks — in which information contained in the board's voter registration database is compared for accuracy against information held by other state agencies — to those occurring within the last few weeks instead of years means "a significant risk, if not a certainty" that illegal votes will be counted.

"Because of the (board's) inaction, properly qualified voters are at risk of having their votes diminished and diluted by the votes of unqualified, ineligible voters who are not entitled to cast ballots," the suit said.

That could affect whether Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois, or Republican Sen. John McCain, of Arizona, wins the state's 10 electoral votes — and even the presidency, Van Hollen said in the suit.

'The next Florida'

But critics said a successful lawsuit could require anyone whose information in the state voter database doesn't match information maintained by other agencies to cast provisional ballots, which are difficult to count.

"If you have a large number of provisional ballots, it exponentially increases the possibility for a post-election fight, and Wisconsin could easily become the next Florida," Tokaji said.

Van Hollen spokesman Kevin St. John said voters won't be disenfranchised if the suit is successful because the federal law "contains many safeguards that allow a qualified voter to cast a ballot and have that vote counted." Van Hollen simply wants the federally mandated checks carried out and isn't asking for the automatic use of provisional ballots by voters whose information doesn't match in the checks, St. John said.

Kevin Kennedy, the accountability board's executive director, said in a statement that Van Hollen, a Republican, is asking the court to force the board to adopt a position pushed by the state GOP and that conducting checks going back to January 2006 could create "unnecessary hardship and confusion at the polls, and at worst, the disenfranchisement of Wisconsin citizens with a clear and legitimate right to vote."

Failed matches

The board last month found that information contained on more than 20 percent of recent voter registrations failed to match information maintained on state Department of Transportation records such as names and addresses, mostly because of variations in how a name was used, typographical errors or incompatibilities in the two agencies' databases. Even information from four of six Accountability Board members in the voter database failed to match DOT records.

Mark Jefferson, executive director of the state GOP, said, "The Government Accountability Board is not taking the HAVA law seriously. Thankfully, the attorney general is."

Joe Wineke, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said the suit is a "cynical attempt to disenfranchise voters" and part of a GOP pattern to "distract and deny voters with fearmongering."

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Calling all Freepers!

Send this article to the Republican Attorney General in YOUR state! (Don't bother if your AG is a 'Rat.)

"Wisconsin could easily become the next Florida."

Bring it on you f-ing CHEATERS!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Ping! Or did you beat me to this? ;)

[bert]

.....mistakes in your database....

If the individual is not correctly listed in the data base, he is by definition not a voter.

It is up to that individual to determine he is properly listed in the data base and thus a voter.

[GoLightly]

"You shouldn't penalize the voter because you've got mistakes in your database," said Dan Tokaji, an election law expert at Ohio State University. "That's the absolute worst thing to do."

Wisconsin's same day, same location as voting registration makes this "defense" a moot point.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Scott Walker/Van Hollen 2010

[GoLightly]

BTW, Van Hollen was interviewed on Vicki McKenna’s (Milwaukee version) show today.

[mallardx]

Funny, I thought the absolute worst thing to do is to disenfranchise Conservative voters by having thousands of their votes cancelled out by fraudulent, criminal Democrats.

[Turret Gunner A20]

Joe Wineke, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said the suit is a "cynical attempt to disenfranchise voters" and part of a GOP pattern to "distract and deny voters with fearmongering."

It appears to me that this joker KNOWS a good deal about, and is afraid of, the number of inelegible (illeglly registered "cemetery residebts" and unlawful aliens) on the rolls.

Wonder how they coulod have gotten there????????

[arrogantsob]

Election expert arrogantsob says “ The voter should not be penalized by having his vote offset by an illegal vote. Not to police the voter list is to throw away the essence of Democracy and representative government.”

Which expert makes most sense to you. Not to mention the lying Rat pretends that a challenged voter will not be allowed to vote a provisional ballot in case he is legit.

These fools are so transparent the average Joe is seeing through their lies.

[Calpernia]

Illegals? Pish Posh! We have people from the 1800s on our voter rolls. Now THAT is market outreach!

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-11/122093494096820.xml&coll=1&thispage=1

Excerpt:

Secretary of State Nina Mitchell Wells, whose office issued the letters, and Assistant Public Advocate Jo Astrid Glading confirmed the erroneous notices were the result of an effort to match voter rolls to motor vehicle records.

The Public Advocate's Office has been demanding such an effort to comply with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. But glitches in the computer data -- some as minor as a missing middle initial -- led to notices going to voters who are in fact registered, according to Susan Evans, a spokeswoman for Wells.

(snip)

Emphasis:

Evans said 300,000 letters went out to residents of Essex, Bergen and five South Jersey counties. She did not know how many were erroneous. Before the mailings resume, she said, the data will be scrubbed -- in particular to keep those voters listed as 208 years old from getting "unduly alarmed."

(snip)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I miss her for that overlapping hour when I get to listen to her, but I am so PLEASED that they’re giving her airtime in Milwaukeestan!!

We have to listen to Hannity blather from 2-3pm so I usually run and do my in-town chores during that hour, LOL!

Do you know how she’s doing in that market?

[Tired of Taxes]

How typical of our state.

[unspun]

J.B. to the rescue!

Can you believe the D’rats are actually arguing against provisional balloting? That sure seems a sign they have something to hide....

Spell it by Barack H. Obama’s former employer: A-C-O-R-N.

[GoLightly]

Hannity doesn't air until 6 PM in the Milwaukee market. About the only time that I hear his show is when I have an errand to run & I hear him in the car. LOL

I don't know how well Vicki's doing in the ratings book, but she's up against Charlie Sykes, another solidly conservative voice in the Milwaukee market. She's on from 10 AM til noon, with Rush Limbaugh starting at noon, so she may get a bump toward the end of her show from his audience. Guess the question should be whether or not she's meeting expectations, which is not the kind of information that gets out to the great unwashed.

[NewsJunqui]

Mark Belling on this right now!

http://newstalk1130.com/cc-common/ondemand/player.html?world=st

[GoLightly]

Funny, I thought the absolute worst thing to do is to disenfranchise Conservative voters by having thousands of their votes cancelled out by fraudulent, criminal Democrats.

Do NOT get me started!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Thanks. I need a plug-in for that, so I’ll ask Husband to do it for me later. (I know; I CAN do it, it’s just that if something gets screwed up, I’ll NEVER hear the end of it, LOL!)

Nice line-up! :)

[ADSUM]

1 in 5 new voter registrations do not agree with WI (state owned and controlled) driver license records or other government databases and the State Elections Board doesn’t want to make corrections or eliminate false registrations.

Something is rotten in Wisconsin and it is spelled

D O Y L E (Democrat Governor).

Van Hollen only wants to check the new registrations from the independent? organizations.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

No - you beat me to it.

I see Van Hollen is catching flak in Madison - but what would one expect there? The usual claim is that little voter fraud has been detected in the past - and that’s a canard since the system is so sloppy that it wouldn’t register if it were present on a large scale. The old absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...

[Robert A Cook PE]

That’s OK, there are only 20% “errors” in the state voter database.

Nothing to see here, just moveon.org