Good News (So Far) On asshole's (AG) Lawsuit:

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080926/GPG0101/809260660/1207/GPG01


"No Time To Do Voter Checks AG Wants Before Election, Clerks Say


MADISON, Wis. — First Florida. Then Ohio. And now Wisconsin?



According to Democrats, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's lawsuit demanding checks of thousands of voters' identities back to Jan. 1, 2006, could result in thousands of people kicked off registration rolls before the Nov. 4 election.

Political pundits fret that could mean stacks of provisional ballots that could take days to count and delay presidential results.

But it may all be moot. A judge isn't expected to make any rulings in the case until 12 days before the election. . . . "

for 23 years and worked at the polls for the last 10. He always votes, of course. I showed him the GAB link and there was NO RECORD for him. His name is Joseph so he checked Joseph and Joe. NOTHING. He would have gone in on November 4 and not been registered if I had not shown him the link where he could check his registration. http://vpa.wi.gov/

So people HAVE ALREADY been purged, people who have not moved or changed their names for years. They are going to be caught completely by surprise on election day. Yes they will still be able to register, but if thousands of people have been purged for no good reason, that's going to create long lines.

That's why people should vote early absentee IN PERSON (yes, I'm throwing this into just about every thread I can). After October 5, your clerk should have ballots available. Voting early gives you the opportunity to resolve any registration issues that might crop up. I'm worried about the people who will show up on election day, and won't have proper ID or proof of residence along with them, so they won't be able to re-register if they've been purged.

But I am posting and emailing voter info everywhere. I am afraid this will affect a lot of seniors. They will be able to register the day of the Election, but it will be chaotic.

who has made the election and voter rights a priority. DAMN, I wish I could say the same for the towns that I work with!!! I have used the City of Madison Clerk's website as an example of what can be done by a Clerk who cares about voter rights and considers herself to be a public servant.

Regarding election-day registration - I would guess that elderly tend to have their drivers license with them, with current address. It's the young folk (coincidently, those who have registered since 2006, those who might be purged under Van Hollen's suit, and those who are more likely to be Obama supporters) who might not have appropriate ID/proof of residence along with them on election day. I ALWAYS have my drivers license with me - my daughter carries hers if she remembers to put it into her purse.

If people wait in line to vote, get to the front of the line and discover that they're no longer registered voters, then go to the registration line, just to learn that they don't have adequate ID along; will they go home, get the ID/proof of residence, come back and stand in registration line and voter check-in line again? I HOPE SO!!! But I fear not. They might need to get to work, pick up the kids from day-care, and just not have the time to battle through.

and find out. The seniors will have a drivers license with them, or time to go home and get identification. But the more we spread the word, the less chaos.

As of tonight I know of at least 6 people over 60 who are longtime residents/voters who just found out they are not in the database and need to register.

The Madison clerks website is great and the people who answer the phone are really helpful. I feel bad telling people around the state they have to figure out who their municipal clerk is because I have no idea.

short answer: (and I realize you know this, undeterred, but the more often we post it, the more people might see it)

Go to http://vpa.wi.gov/ and do a search to see which municipality a particular address is in (eg, Town of Middleton, Ward 2)

Go to GAB http://elections.state.wi.us/ to look up your Clerk's contact information (Clerk for Town of Middleton).

long answer:

The question for property owners is WHO DO YOU PAY YOUR PROPERTY TAXES TO? Doesn't help for newcomers or for non-property owners.

But anyone can go to http://vpa.wi.gov/ - the second option on that page is to look up the polling location for a particular address. Do that search, and then if you scroll all the way to the bottom of the results page, it will tell you what ward that person is in.

So, again for my address, the results page for the address search shows that I'm in the Town of Middleton, Ward 2, I would then go to the "Clerk Information" list, and look up the name/contact information for the Town of Middleton Clerk.

http://elections.state.wi.us/

link in left margin for "Clerk Information"

On the Clerk's page, scroll about 2/3 down, there's a link to a pdf of the list of municipal clerks. Download that and keep your laptop with you at all times, so you can help people look up their own Clerk's contact information.


When working elections for the Town of Middleton, we had people from City of Madison, Town of Madison, City of Middleton, Town of Cross Plains and Town of Verona show up at our polling place, thinking that they lived in the Town. The recent Comprehensive Planning survey for the Town of Cross Plains clearly showed that too many residents didn't know that they live in the Town, not the Village. The duplication of names for Towns/Villages/Cities is a problem. Also a problem comes from the fact that munis are served by multiple post offices. Town of Middleton is served by four different post offices, so it can be confusing if you don't know that your mailing address (post office that serves your house) has nothing to do with which municipality you live in.

All DUers are in a position to help people to:
a)verify that they are registered
b)figure out who their clerk is, and where the clerk's office is
c)encourage them to vote early IN PERSON in the clerk's office
d)if they aren't going to do that, help them to double check their polling location, since it oftentimes is not at the same location as the clerk's office

I knew how to find polling location but not clerks office. I vote in a library. Is there any way for people to see online exacly what is going to be on their ballot when they vote?

'view sample ballot' link on the vpa search results, but they won't have the information for a while yet. :hi:

From Sen. Erpenbach's e-mail newsletter of Sept 26:



This is from the FairElectionsWisconsin e-mail group at groups.yahoo.com. I signed up recently and have been getting a lot of good information on the election process in Wisconsin from them. (I believe it was undeterred who mentioned this--thanks!)

You're awesome!

:hi: :thumbsup: :)

I was hoping that the media would start taking the story up and the Sunday Wisconsin State Journal did a front page story on it: http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/306842

Voters may be nervous
By Mark Pitsch
608-252-6145
mpitsch@madison.com
Voters erased from the rolls. Absentee ballot application mixups raising suspicions of political dirty tricks. A lawsuit against the state's election agency suggesting possible fraud.

The developments of the past few weeks are making voters wary going into an election that will decide the nation's next president and the makeup of the state Legislature.

"I'm not sure the word is nervous, but there's uncertainty out there," said Joe Heim, a UW-La Crosse political science professor. "A lot of voters have heard these stories, and the lawsuit has gotten their attention. There's a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of uncertainty."

Problems first surfaced during the Sept. 9 primary, when several Dane County voters learned they had been incorrectly wiped off the rolls because their birth dates weren't on file. In at least one case, a voter's registration was cancelled, likely because someone with the same name and birth date had registered in another jurisdiction. In all cases, problems were resolved, local officials said.

Voters in Dane County and elsewhere also complained about receiving absentee ballot request forms from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign that were pre-printed with the wrong municipal clerk's address. The same concerns were raised later this month after the state Republican Party mailed similar forms, some with the wrong clerk's address.

And, perhaps creating the most uncertainty, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sued the Government Accountability Board this month to force local clerks to double-check the records of all voters who have registered over the past two years.

"I'm behind him 100 percent," Phyllis Pett of Madison said of Van Hollen. "This is right. This should be done. (Registrations) should be checked even if it takes a little extra time."

If successful, the lawsuit could lead to long lines at the Nov. 4 polls, require some voters to re-register and increase the number of provisional ballots cast, possibly leading to a post-election ballot-counting frenzy similar to Florida's in 2000, experts said. But a timeline set last week by the judge in the case raises questions about whether the suit would have an impact on the election.

Van Hollen's suit

At issue in the lawsuit is the breadth of checks required under the Help America Vote Act, a 2002 federal law designed to prevent ineligible voters from casting ballots. It requires states to create centralized voter databases and verify voter registration information with state driver, felon and death records.

The accountability board, which oversees elections in Wisconsin, plans to double-check the identities of voters who have registered since Aug. 6, when the state's database became operational. But Van Hollen wants the board to conduct the checks for all registrants since January 2006, when the system was supposed to be completed.

Wisconsin is one of ten states that missed the January 2006 deadline, and the next to last to develop a functioning database, according to officials in those states and electionline.org, which tracks election issues.

Among those states, Alabama, Maine, New York, Virginia and Wyoming -- like Wisconsin -- began their checks from the day their systems went into effect, officials said, although each of those states' systems were working by the end of 2007. Colorado, where the state database became operational in April, did opt to check all registrations dating back to January 2006, a spokesman said.

A New Jersey official could not say exactly when that state began the registration checks, while a Nevada elections official didn't return a phone call. And Illinois' database was expected to be operational soon.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which enforces HAVA, sued four states -- Alabama, Maine, New Jersey and New York -- for not complying with the law. But it didn't sue Wisconsin.

Kyle Richmond, a spokesman for the accountability board, said federal authorities were satisfied by the state's progress and never threatened legal action.

The accountability board said that Van Hollen's suit could compel the board and local clerks to check the voting records of the 1 million voters who registered between January 2006 and Aug. 5.

Most of those voters have already shown the necessary proof of residency, said Barbara Hansen, director of the state voting system. But about 241,000 people who registered in person at a clerk's office, by mail or with a special deputy authorized to register voters would not have had to show proof of residence, and their checks would be the most time consuming, Hansen said.

Conducting checks on those records would be difficult before the November election, said Nancy Zastrow, president of the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association and the clerk in Milton.

"I don't believe it would be hard to do next year when it's a slow year," Zastrow said of conducting HAVA checks back to January 2006. "The fact they want it done before the November election is what worries all of us. There's no way to make sure we can get our records straight by then."

Van Hollen has argued that all effort should be made before November to conduct the registration checks. A state co-chairman of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, Van Hollen said the presidential election could hang in the balance.

It's not clear what checks back to January 2006 would turn up. A recent check of voters who registered between Aug. 6 and Aug. 26 showed discrepancies in the information of 22 percent of the registrations. But most of those mismatches related to transcription errors or names being recorded one way on a driver's license and another way on a voter registration card.

Checks in place

Van Hollen has argued that the state should take every step to ensure the ineligible voters are prevented from casting a ballot.

But clerks point out that many steps have already been taken to protect the process.

Voting in Wisconsin has always required some type of validation, either by showing proof of residence at the time a person registered or having an existing voter vouch for a prospective voter.

In addition, clerks mailed cards to all new voters at the addresses they provided when they registered at the polls or by mail. If the cards came back as undeliverable, those voters were struck from the rolls and the names of the voters were referred to local district attorneys.

Now, the state sends out those cards.

Some clerks also were notified by local law enforcement of felons who were prohibited from voting and perused obituary notices in the past, Hansen said.

Since 2006, clerks have also been provided with lists of felons, and those lists are checked when people register or apply for an absentee ballot. The state voter system also checks state death records so that dead people don't show up on the rolls.

HELP AMERICA VOTE ACT TIMELINE

2002: Congress creates the Help America Vote Act to curtail voter fraud. Among the requirements is creation of a statewide voter database used to check registration information against other state records.

November 2004: The former state Elections Board hires Accenture to build the database for $14 million.

January 2006: Wisconsin misses the federal deadline, extended from 2004, to develop the database.

November 2007: A state audit finds flaws in the database, including an inability to weed out ineligible voters.

December 2007: After threats of a lawsuit, the Elections Board ends the contract with Accenture, which has been paid $9 million but will return $6 million to the state for failing to deliver a working database.

Aug. 6: The Government Accountability Board announces the database is operational, and local clerks begin checking new voter registrations against other state records for accuracy.

Aug. 27: The board rejects a state Republican Party request to check registrations since January 2006, when the database was supposed to be working.

Sept. 10: Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sues the board to force registration checks dating to January 2006 and purge ineligible voters from the rolls.