Posted on 11/02/2004 3:38:31 AM PST by fanningp
Milwaukee officials scrambled late Monday to record voter registration information for up to 20,000 people, a major last-minute problem that had threatened to force thousands of new voters to re-register.
Mayor Tom Barrett acknowledged he learned Monday that a significant number of new voter registrations had not been processed because elections officials were swamped.
"We responded to this discovery quickly and aggressively," Barrett said in a written statement Monday night. "All new voter registration information will be at the polls Tuesday morning."
Three dozen to four dozen city employees worked throughout the day and much of the evening to record the registrations, and by 9:30 p.m., all had been completed, said Barrett's chief of staff, Patrick Curley. All of the new voter registrations sent to the city will be at the appropriate polling place today.
It's possible a voter who recently registered won't be on the master list. In those cases, they will be directed to the registration table where their registration cards will be pulled, and they will be given a ballot, Curley said.
The city workers entered the names in computers so that supplemental lists could be created by the time polls open at 7 a.m. today.
Barrett only acknowledged the embarrassing scramble when questioned about it during a news conference, initially saying only "well over a thousand" cards had not been entered onto voting lists.
The situation prompted harsh criticism from Milwaukee aldermen and groups that organized massive voter registration drives to help Democrat John Kerry unseat President Bush.
It also prompted attorneys for Kerry to file a complaint with the state Elections Board, perhaps laying the groundwork to contest voting procedures and results in one of their most unlikely places: Democratic Milwaukee, a city where the mayor is co-chair of Kerry's state campaign.
The revelation came in the wake of an agreement - still in place late Monday - that calls for poll workers to seek identification from anyone trying to vote from about 5,500 addresses, which the state Republican Party has identified as non-existent buildings.
Chris Lato, a spokesman for the state Republican Party, labeled the situation a "mess of gargantuan proportions."
"I think the question has to go back to the city: Who is asleep at the switch?" Lato said. "Why do we have such a catastrophe on our hands here?"
Barrett urged all city voters, especially those who recently registered, to bring identification with them today. A similar warning was sounded before the September primary, though there was little discussion then of any backlogged registration cards.
Curley said the mayor's office was not told until Monday morning of the volume of registration cards that had not been processed.
City staffers from several departments were quickly shifted to the task, in hopes of having supplemental lists available at each of the city's 312 voting wards.
Lisa Artison, executive director of the Election Commission, could not be reached for comment Monday. Barrett appointed her to the job in July, over the objection of some aldermen. Backlog cited
At a City Hall news conference, Barrett said the problem was the sheer volume of registration forms that were completed by groups conducting voter drives, with many forms submitted "at the last minute."
The topic did not come up, however, until the end of the election eve news conference, at which Barrett urged all city residents to vote during non-peak hours and be patient with poll workers.
Responding to a Journal Sentinel question, he acknowledged "well over a thousand" cards had not been entered. He later put the number at 15,000 to 20,000.
The news conference was then quickly ended.
Last week, the Election Commission provided a computer list of about 16,000 new registrants to the Journal Sentinel, which had requested all new registrants since April. The number surprised groups, most of them affiliated with the Democrats, who said they had registered many thousands more new voters from the Milwaukee area.
The Wisconsin Citizen Action Fund said it alone had registered about that many Milwaukee voters. The New Voters Project said it registered about 11,700 Milwaukee residents since May.
Larry Marx, co-executive director of the Wisconsin Citizen Action Fund, said Monday he was "totally alarmed" by the situation.
He said his group's effort focused on groups ordinarily not involved in the political process, such as the poor. Many are first-time voters who believe they are registered and now might have to stand in line a second time in order to register before voting.
"My fear is that the lines will get so long that people will decide the hell with it," Marx said.
Riverwest resident Lise Olsen said she filled out a voter registration application Sept. 25 at Holy Rosary Church but was told Friday when she called the city Election Commission that she was not registered and that many applications had not been processed.
When asked what created the problem, Barrett said it was a "reflection of the large demand" for new registrations and the anticipated record turnout.
Curley said the Election Commission staff stopped entering new registration cards at about 11 p.m. Oct. 25 to concentrate on processing a huge number of absentee ballot requests.
As of Saturday, the city had processed more than 21,000 absentee ballot requests, more than twice as many as were cast in the 2000 presidential race. A perpetual line of at least several dozen waited at City Hall for the past week to vote early.
For a time, two shifts, with nine to 15 workers, were working to enter information from the cards into the system, Curley said.
George Twigg, Wisconsin spokesman for Kerry's campaign, said Barrett's office had assured the campaign staff that everyone would be able to vote today and the campaign was "pleased with the rapid response." Intervention sought
Still, Kerry attorneys quickly took the matter to the state Elections Board, arguing anyone whose case cannot be resolved today should be able to file a "challenge" ballot.
Their filing says up to 30,000 forms might not have been processed in time. The forms had to be completed so voter lists could be printed and placed in voting machines, which were sealed and delivered to polling locations Wednesday.
Kerry attorneys also asked Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager to determine the legality of the city's agreement with the Elections Board on how to resolve the Republican complaint regarding the 5,500 addresses.
City Attorney Grant Langley said late Monday the agreement remained in place, and poll workers already had been instructed how to handle the list and anyone who attempts to vote from the questioned addresses.
In a letter, Langley told Lautenschlager changing it now would be "very disruptive to the election process."
Over the weekend, the GOP had demanded the city seek identification from more than 37,000 addresses, including cases where an apartment number might be missing from an existing building. The party quickly dropped the request, however.
The two issues - bad addresses and registrations that weren't recorded - might be, to some degree, traced to the same overwhelmed bureaucracy.
Barrett refused to place blame Monday, repeating his commitment to run the "cleanest and fairest election in the city's history." But he could face pressure from aldermen to make changes in the department or to exercise greater oversight of its operations.
"That's horrendous," Ald. Michael Murphy said when told of the registration situation. "If they had a problem where they didn't have adequate staff, they should have let us know about it."
Murphy said it was a high priority for the council to provide the resources to ensure a smooth election.
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