Posted on 02/09/2005 6:44:23 AM PST by UB355
If Milwaukee election records are correct, someone named Marquis F. Murff registered at the polls Nov. 2 and voted from an address on E. Knapp St.
Trouble is, the address is home to St. Catherine Residence, which has allowed only women to live there for 110 years.
Indeed, city records show that someone with an identical name and middle initial also registered at the polls that day and voted from 1503 N. Franklin Place. That address does not exist.
And though driver's license records put a Marquis F. Murff next door at 1505 N. Franklin Place, his name isn't on a directory of residents at that apartment building and messages left by the Journal Sentinel at that apartment went unanswered.
The case of Marquis F. Murff is one of many peculiarities, inconsistencies, duplications and plain unanswered questions found in recent days by the newspaper in its review of the election in the city.
The review has prompted a joint federal-local investigation into possible voter fraud and is complicated by flawed or incomplete city record keeping and new state limits on information that could be used to help identify potential duplicate voters.
When combined with the crush of voters that Mayor Tom Barrett says "overwhelmed" the system, it is difficult even three months later to identify potential voter fraud - and nearly impossible to rule it out.
The problems have become clear, though, underscored by case after case of unexplained duplicate voter listings - such as Marquis F. Murff - found by the newspaper.
There are college students listed as voting on campus and at home; people recorded as voting at old addresses and their new ones; identical names listed as registering at different addresses on election day; and even a woman who is listed as voting somewhere she says she never lived.
Barrett Chief of Staff Patrick Curley said such potential irregularities should be examined by authorities as part of their probe - and any fraudulent voters punished.
"This information has got to go to them," Curley said. "The rhyme or reason (for the problems) will be have to be sorted out by the investigators with the help of our staff."
The newspaper has found more than 1,200 votes cast from invalid addresses in the city, hundreds of cases where a computer "glitch" incorrectly caused voters to be listed twice and a 7,000-vote gap between the number of ballots counted and the number of people listed by the city as having voted.
Reviews under way The newspaper revelations prompted a joint investigation into possible fraud by Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann and U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic. Also, a state audit into problems here and in other cities could be OK'd today in Madison.
And a controversial Republican-sponsored measure that would require all voters to show a photo ID could be sent to the full Assembly today, though it faces a veto from Gov. Jim Doyle.
Chris Lato, a spokesman for the state Republican Party, said the cases of questionable voting discovered by the newspaper highlight the need for the ID requirement statewide.
"If people want to commit fraud, it's becoming more apparent that it's not too hard to pull off in this state," he said.
Opponents of the ID measure say, though, that it would make it too difficult for the poor, elderly and disabled to vote.
Democrat John Kerry topped President Bush in Wisconsin by about 11,300 votes, one of the narrowest margins in the nation. Had a larger state, such as Ohio, gone for Kerry, it could have led to a Florida-style recount in Wisconsin that could have turned on many of the votes that are in question now.
The fraud probe is focusing on some 1,300 same-day registration cards the city could not process because they were incomplete or had bad information, including hundreds with missing names or addresses.
The city has refused to grant the Journal Sentinel access to the cards despite earlier agreeing to and even requiring - and accepting - advance payment of copying charges in the paper's open records request.
City Attorney Grant Langley said the state open records law includes an exception for ongoing investigations. Investigators have asked the city not to release any copies of on-site registration cards, including the 1,300 that could not be processed and some 2,800 or more verification cards that were mailed and returned as undeliverable.
Voters difficult to track Using computer records provided under an earlier request, the newspaper has attempted to track down dozens of cases from the 6,500 in which people with identical names and initials are listed as voting from different addresses.
Some are clearly two different people or have very common names. For example, six people named James L. Smith voted in November.
The newspaper took a sample of 300 people from that list, focusing on duplicate individuals with uncommon names. In most cases, public records checks easily confirmed that two different people were included on the list.
Some other duplications have been explained by the city as computer "glitches" from the post-election data-entry process, in which people were incorrectly assigned two votes.
But most of those cases have involved people who moved and registered at a new address, or already-registered voters who - for whatever reason - reregistered at the same address.
In at least 40 cases, though, the Journal Sentinel could not confirm an existence of an individual through public records. Reporters were then sent to the addresses and, in at least 10 of them, a wide range of inconsistences emerged.
There was Marquis F. Murff.
And there was Linda M. Chojnacki, who is listed as having voted from an address in the 1100 block of W. Montana St., where she says she has lived and voted for six years.
Records also list a Linda M. Chojnacki - one with the same birth date - as registering and voting from a house in the 2600 block of S. 7th St. Chojnacki, though, has never lived there and said she did not vote from that address.
After the 2000 election, the city included birth dates of voters with the information provided to the newspaper. In that race, no duplicate voters were found.
This time, under changes in state privacy laws, birth dates were withheld. Thus, it is difficult to determine if identical names represent the same people.
In the case of Chojnacki, city officials reviewed the complete record at the newspaper's request and found the same birth date was listed for the voter at both polling locations.
Hundreds of cases found by the newspaper have been explained by city officials as the result of a computer problem, but those generally involved people who had voted somewhere else in the past.
It seems unlikely the city computer would, as cards were entered, assign a random second address to a person.
Confusing records In some cases, the newspaper found other public records that suggest the two votes represent two different people and data-entry errors are to blame.
For instance, Gloria Bell-Piphus is listed as having voted from a residence in the 5500 block of W. Roosevelt Drive. Records also show a Gloria Bell-Piphus as voting from the 2200 block of W. Burleigh St.
A woman located at the Burleigh address said her name is simply Gloria Bell, not Gloria Bell-Piphus. She said she voted in the November election.
The newspaper also was able to track down some people living at unlikely addresses, including a Midwest Airlines maintenance facility at Mitchell International Airport.
In that case, Philip J. Petersen said he is a representative for Rolls-Royce engines and is based there with the airline. He said at the time of the election he didn't have a permanent address and got his mail at the 555 W. Air Cargo Way facility. It was also the address on his driver's license.
"When I voted, this was considered my address more or less," Petersen said, adding he now has an address in Cudahy.
People can legally list their place of work as their voting address, as long as they vote only once, according to George Dunst, legal counsel to the state Elections Board.
The newspaper found other voters who registered from the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and even a carwash.
In other cases, though, extensive searches of public records, followed by repeated phone calls and door-knocking, turned up cases that leave as many questions as answers.
There was Nicholas J. Poethig, a Marquette University student listed by the city as voting from a campus address and his parents' home on W. Woodlawn Court. Poethig said he only voted once, using his parents' address.
And Nicole D. Spears, listed by the city as voting from an address in the 5800 block of N. 75th St., as well as her old address on W. Lynmar Trail. A woman at the 75th St. address said Spears voted only from that address, but used to live at the other.
There was Carrie S. Stotmeister, listed by the city as voting from her University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee address, where she registered as part of an on-campus registration drive. She is also listed as registering on election day and voting using her parents' address, on N. 53rd St. She said she voted only once, from that address.
And Tameia McNeill, listed as living at a home in the 2600 block of N. 47th St. and an apartment on W. Highland Blvd. In both cases, city records show on-site registrations, though McNeill says she voted using only the Highland Blvd. apartment address.
It is conceivable that in some of the cases cited, someone else fraudulently voted from the address instead of the person listed. Or that entries were recorded improperly by the city.
Some of the cases may be traced back to the computer problem officials blamed for problems. They have also cited "layer upon layer" of human error before and after the election.
The newspaper has identified many recordkeeping and computer flaws in the data. Those problems complicate any review of the election, since they translate into hundreds - even thousands - of incomplete or duplicate records. If those records are not corrected, they leave the door open for future fraud.
For instance, extra names and addresses are on the voter rolls and, since no ID is required at the polls, it would be easy for individuals to scam the system and vote from them in the future.
City officials have said they expect a new statewide voter list, which is to be up and running late this year, to solve some of the list problems.
They also have pledged to improve the election process. A task force appointed by Barrett has a second meeting scheduled for Friday.
Mike Johnson, Lawrence Sussman, Marie Rohde, Tom Held and Jesse Garza of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
From the Feb. 9, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Are you suggesting the Demoncats shouldn't be allowed to vote???
You're right. They are victims! And so we must pass a law that checks can now be cashed WITHOUT ID. Really, it's the only way we can make restitution for the wrongs our society has done.
I think the MoV was ~13,000 votes.
11,300 vote margin for Kerry.
In Milwaukee alone there are over 7,000 more votes than there were people who voted...and THAT's the raw number, before you deduct the double votes.
The problem is that there's so much deadwood in the records, that it's a very simple matter for someone to pick a name and vote it.
I personally identified about a dozen obsolete registrations in my precinct in San Jose, California, based on clearly-vacant homes - with no curtains on the windows and no furniture inside - and I took the time to cancel my wife's and my registrations in San Jose when we moved out of the state, so that nobody could vote under our registration, but most people don't bother.
The checklist supervisors need to get pro-active, sifting through public records actively looking for property sales, license registrations, and so on to insure that the checklist is kept clean.
How does having ID disenfranchise the poor? the elderly? the disabled?
I bet all of those categories have to produce ID to collect on Social Security, Medicaid, SSI payments, etc.
Everybody keep movin'. Nothing to see here. Mistakes were made. It's all in the past. Let's move on. We'll never know the truth.
And, by the way, all the phony votes were, coincidentally, cast for Democrats.
Friday thread here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1340948/posts
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