Lawmaker criticizes voter verification process
Cards could not be sent to addresses of 10,000 who registered at Milwaukee polls on election day
By GREG J. BOROWSKI
gborowski@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Jan. 14, 2005
A Republican lawmaker who advocates a voter ID requirement is criticizing the Milwaukee Election Commission's handling of voters who registered at the polls Nov. 2, saying some 10,000 could not be sent cards to verify their address.
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State Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) said Friday the number reflects cases where registration cards filled out by voters were illegible or, in some cases, duplicates.
City officials, though, said late Friday there may be other explanations, such as voters who registered at the polls even though they had registered in advance, or filled out cards to update flawed ones they had submitted earlier.
At the center of the issue is a process by which those who register on election day are sent postcards to confirm the address before they are entered onto permanent voting rolls.
By law, Stone said, the process was to begin right after the election, though he says the cards were not sent until Jan. 6. Of the 83,000 or so same-day registrations, a number city officials acknowledge, Stone said he was told only 73,079 cards could be mailed.
That leaves a gap of about 10,000, which he argues is evidence of serious problems.
"The one fail-safe you have on these people is to the addresses on the cards," he said. "We have 10,000 of them that can't be verified."
It is unclear how many of the cards have been returned as undeliverable.
Lisa Artison, executive director of the Election Commission, declined to comment on Stone's claims Friday night, saying she was not in the office and could not respond until Tuesday. City Hall is closed Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Patrick Curley, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Barrett, said the matter will be sorted out but questioned why Stone issued a news release before asking for more information.
Curley took a similar view of a state Republican news release issued earlier in the day that accused the Election Commission of foot-dragging on an open-records request.
"Putting out a press release is easier than sorting it out," Curley said.
Meanwhile, Citizens for Responsible Government said it will call for an independent outside audit of all election functions, said Chris Kliesmet, a leader of the group.
Barrett recently appointed a task force to review election processes.
That group, which is to hold its first business session Friday, has been criticized for being made up of city employees and officials.
Two staffers in the city comptroller's office, independent from the administration, have been added to the panel.
Artison and the Election Commission have faced major criticism for the Nov. 2 election, which featured massive registration drives and a surge in absentee ballot requests and early voting.
Among the problems: up to 20,000 registration cards that were not processed in time; some people who requested absentee ballots did not receive them before the election; and 238 absentee ballots that were not delivered in time to be counted on election day.
At the city's request, the state later allowed those ballots to be counted.
Nevertheless, a review of the election released this week by the Election Protection Coalition, which had monitors at many polling places, declared poll workers "did a remarkable job." It also said that while many procedural problems existed, there was no indication of fraud.
Here's the 27 page report of the Election Protection Coalition:
found at: http://www.aclu-wi.org/wisconsin/voting_rights/2004ElectionProtectionReport.pdf
Excerpts:
Milwaukee ELECTION PROTECTION was supported by People for the American
Way, the Milwaukee County Labor Council, AFL-CIO, Voces de Frontera,
the NAACP, Operation Big Vote, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the
A. Phillip Randolph Institute, Wisconsin Citizen Action, the Faith Community
for Worker Justice, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law, and the
American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.
SNIP
from page 8:
Some inspectors allowed partisan observers to insert completed ballots into the tabulating machines.
SNIP
from page 11:
Fraud Not An Issue
There have been allegations in the press of voter fraud and calls for new
restrictions on voting such as requiring voters to present photo IDs. The
hundreds of Election Protection observers at more than 90 locations did not
observe voter fraud. Rather, observations indicate that the greatest threat to
voting was the impediments -- lines, accessibility, registration difficulties,
confusing instructions -- that confronted eligible voters.
Based upon our observations, ELECTION PROTECTION does not believe
additional restrictions on voting such as requiring registered voters to present
photo ID’s are warranted. Current penalties for voter fraud, including felony
prosecution and the potential of a prison sentence are a sufficient deterrent to
voter fraud. Instead of expending effort and financial resources to make
voting more difficult and time consuming, careful consideration should be
given instead to strengthening and improving existing procedures.