Wisconsin GOP trying disenfranchise voters

http://www.truthout.org/article/wisconsin-gop-trying-disenfranchise-voters


Van Hollen's Lawsuit Will Muck Up Election, Voting Officials Say

Friday 12 September 2008

by: Steven Elbow, The Capital Times


A lawsuit filed by the state attorney general Wednesday has the potential to slow down voting lines in what promises to be a staggering turnout for the Nov. 4 election, local voting officials said.

"It will disenfranchise voters. That's what we're concerned about," City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, filed the lawsuit Monday in Dane County Circuit Court to get ineligible voters off the rolls. It calls for a court order mandating the Government Accountability Board to cross-check voters who have registered since Jan. 1, 2006, when federal Help America Vote Act legislation required that states implement a voter database to cross-check voter registrations with Department of Transportation, criminal and death records.

"We're working on plans to make sure we don't have long lines at the polls, make sure that the lines can move smoothly and quickly," Witzel-Behl said. "If we throw this into the mix, then it is going to slow things down."

The GAB didn't have the voter registration system up and running until Aug. 6 of this year and has said it will cross-check from that date on. Van Hollen said that to comply with federal law, the state has to go back to the federal deadline.
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