Posted on 01/25/2005 6:48:24 AM PST by Jean S
A review of Milwaukee voting records from the Nov. 2 presidential election has found more than 1,200 ballots cast from invalid addresses in the city, including many cases in which the voter could not be located at all.
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The number is a result of a detailed computer analysis by the Journal Sentinel of the city’s voter records and represents about 0.4% of the 277,535 ballots cast in the city in the hard-fought election. Some of the problems may be due to flawed record keeping, such as transposed digits or incorrect street names. Many others, however, cannot easily be explained.
The newspaper’s review, the most extensive analysis done so far of the election, revealed 1,242 votes coming from a total of 1,135 invalid addresses. That is, in some cases more than one person is listed as voting from the address. Of the 1,242 voters with invalid addresses, 75% registered on site on election day, according to city records.
While the number is not enough to have determined the outcome of the statewide presidential contest, the revelation prompted renewed criticism Monday by state Republicans and raised concerns at City Hall about how well records were kept on and after a frenzied election day.
Already, the newspaper has reported that about 8,300 more votes were cast than the number of people recorded by the city as voting. This appears to be due to cases where cards from those who presented identification and registered on election day could not be processed, a gap that the city’s own estimates had put at more than 10,000.
In any case, those are not included in the city database and are not part of the paper’s review, which involved checking each voter’s address against two separate lists of properties in the city.
A spot check of addresses that came back as invalid found cases where the address in question is a park, a baseball diamond and at or near the W. Wisconsin Ave. bridge. In most cases, though, there simply was no building at that address.
“I suspect it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Rick Graber, chairman of the state Republican Party. “If there ever was a need for a full-blown, real investigation into what went on, this is enough evidence for it.”
He said the investigation should be done by an outside entity, not a task force such as the one appointed by Mayor Tom Barrett that includes only city employees.
Barrett Chief of Staff Patrick Curley said the newspaper’s findings underscore the need to improve the handling of elections, particularly large-turnout ones that strain the system.
Curley said he believes the problematic addresses - less than 1% of those who voted - are a sign of procedural problems in the Election Commission office, not widespread fraud.
“The process is what we’ve charged the election task force with,” Curley said. “Obviously, improvements are needed.”
Lisa Artison, executive director of the city Election Commission, said simply: “The results you obtained make it clear the new statewide voter system is very badly needed and long overdue.”
But that system, to be online late this year, will do little to safeguard against problems with same-day voter registration, or with the flood of registration cards the city received in the final days before Nov. 2.
While those who register on election day have to present valid identification, it is impossible to check on the spot if the address provided is valid.
Indeed, the city has been unable to process thousands of the registration cards, which officials say are illegible or are lacking required information, such as a birth date. Thus, those voters cannot be sent verification cards, as required under state law.
Artison was to meet Monday with the district attorney’s office to discuss the cards that could not be processed, but the meeting was postponed. Artison said Mike Mahoney, the assistant district attorney in charge of election issues, asked for the meeting.
Under state law, verification cards that are returned as undeliverable must be sent to the local district attorney, though the Journal Sentinel has found spotty compliance statewide. Artison has said “several hundred” of the 73,079 cards that were sent out Jan. 6 have come back. Those have not yet been forwarded to the district attorney.
Questions about the accuracy of the city’s voter rolls, and whether adequate safeguards are in place to prevent fraud, were raised before the Nov. 2 election.
Six days before the election, the state Republican Party challenged 5,619 addresses on the city voter rolls as non-existent, including vacant lots, a billboard and a gyros stand. The challenge, though, was rejected by the city Election Commission, which said the GOP had not met the high legal standard for dropping names from voter rolls.
A review by the city attorney’s office found many cases where the addresses did exist, but could be explained by errors such as numbers from registration cards that were transposed. In other cases, though, officials agreed that addresses on the GOP list didn’t exist.
The city later agreed to have poll workers require identification from anyone attempting to vote from addresses on the GOP list.
At the time, the Republican Party acknowledged that it could not say whether anyone had voted from non-existent addresses in past elections - and since the election, it has made no specific allegations of fraudulent voting in Milwaukee.
Nevertheless, the Journal Sentinel filed an open records request Nov. 8 seeking a computerized list of all registered voters, including a notation of those recorded as having voted Nov. 2. The city provided the information Thursday.
In checking the list for invalid addresses, the newspaper used computer software to compare the addresses of all 269,212 recorded as voting against a U.S. Postal Service list of addresses. That process revealed 31,255 questionable addresses - but that was mainly due to apartment buildings, in which the software read a unit number as an unmatchable address.
Once those were taken out, about 2,900 addresses remained. Each was then entered into the City of Milwaukee’s own database of properties. At that point, about 1,100 non-existent addresses remained.
As an additional step, the newspaper sent reporters to 40 randomly selected suspect addresses. None of them existed.
At that point, reporters tried to match the names of a sample 300 of the listed voters against other public records, to determine if a clerical error was involved.
In about 20% of the cases, it appears as though a clerical error led to the invalid address. For example, one voter’s address was incorrectly listed as 3130 S. 15th St., which does not exist. That person does live at 3130 S. 15th Place, however. In other cases, digits in an address were transposed.
Shirley Dolgner, 73 and a first-time voter in November, was surprised to learn that what she had dutifully printed out on her card on election day was wrong in the city’s system.
Her S. 68th St. address, where she has lived for 20-plus years, went into the voter rolls as S. 63rd St.
“I wrote this myself. Why would this come up like this?” she said. “If this is the system, it’s not working very well.”
But for 80% of the other names in that sample list, no one with the name could immediately be found in other public record searches. That means there are potentially hundreds of cases in which a vote was counted for someone whose existence could not be confirmed, at an address that does not exist.
Graber said that points to the need for election reforms, such as requiring that all voters present photo identification at the polls.
“I think it’s probably premature to judge if it’s incompetence or fraud,” he said. “I think the answers will become clearer as more investigation is done.”
The state GOP filed its own open records request for election information Nov. 16. Graber said the party has not yet received the information it requested.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has vetoed the photo identification requirement and says he will do so again. It is opposed by many Democrats, including Barrett, who say it could become an impediment to voting for some.
One safeguard against fraud is the quality of the list of eligible voters, which typically is purged only once every four years - after a presidential contest. Milwaukee is planning to update its list soon, in part to check its accuracy as it becomes part of a new statewide voter list.
Each state must have such a list in place under a federal law passed after the 2000 election. Wisconsin’s is to be completed late this year. It will be set up so that if a voter moves to a new community, that person’s name would automatically be dropped from the previous address.
As it stands now, names can be left on the list for years, leaving the door open for someone to fraudulently vote from the address or to identify himself or herself as someone else and vote. It is impossible to detect that sort of fraud through a computer review such as this one.
If the numbers can be extrapolated out, it might well be.
I'm not dumb enough to believe these are the only invalid votes in that state.
Now what was the margin again?
You asked for numbers? #59 has some scary ones (and they're just from Milwaukee; imagine if I extrapolated for Madison/Racine/Kenosha/La Crosse/Eau Claire/Superior/Beloit/Janesville).
Ring-a-ding-ding. That person "affirming" the "residency" of those without ID is supposed to be a resident of the appropriate ward. #41 has the story you are looking for (pinging the man on top of that one).
In the case of Doyle, fat chance. Doyle vetoed voter ID in early 2003, the Republicans could not persuade enough rats to cross party lines and vote to override the veto.
South Dakota finally required ID at the polls and that's all it took to keep Dem fraud from re-electing Daschle.
Actually, we had a printout of actual addresses in our precinct to use. (I was an election inspector in Fitchburg) The supervisor also had a master list of actual addresses for the cities of Madison and Middleton, as well, for people who came to the wrong polling place.
I don't understand why they cannot investigate and find out who these people are that are perpetrating these frauds. Giving out phoney addresses, double voting, etc,. If they found these people and prosecuted them wouldn't this serve as a deterant in the future?!!
Same day registration and "motor voter" laws were designed to provide the corrupt Democrats with more fraudulent votes.
Quinn's Law #2: If you want to see what the liberals are really up to, look at what they accuse the conservatives of doing.
It would be a great excuse to propose that very thing, but elections, and by extension, voter rolls, should be maintained at the local level.14th Amendent to the Constitution
And this is happening in lots and lots of DNC controlled precints.
The DNC "machine" at work!!!
Note: the newest Jib-Jab video shows Iowa as a blue state. WRONG- Iowa went RED!
No. I just looked at the Jib Jab Video, the second term one. Iowa is Red on it, just like it's suppose to be.
This is the same place where a Democrat elected official's son is now being charged with various crimes in related to slashing tires of the car of Republican campaign workers. Also, the previous election this same area was hit by the charge that the Democrats were essentially buying votes with "paying" people with cigarettes. Funny how that works...........
Anyone with an IQ over 40 can explain them, and predict the party affiliation of the ghost voters.
Same party that slits Republicans' tires.
Same party that canvasses cemeteries for its voter registration drives.
Not sure if I've pinged this one before.
Granted, I would like to see people in the federal pen, but at least the pubs are not ignoring the problem. Sadly, if they don't prosecute Sandy Burgler the odds are they won;t prosecute election fraud.
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Invalid Addresses
Kane: