November 28, 2004

Walker was Right

Before the election there was a tiff between Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker over how many ballots would be printed for the City of Milwaukee. The city wanted 938,000 ballots while the county offered 679,000. Last Wednesday, the city returned 665,000 unused ballots. Had the county's lower amount been used no ward would have run out of ballots.

This conflict was merely political. Barrett, a Democrat, used the issue to claim Walker, a Republican, was part of a nefarious plot to prevent voters in the highly Democratic city of Milwaukee from voting. Gov. Jim Doyle, also a Democrat, stuck his nose into it to take some shots at Walker. Doyle did this because in two years he'll be facing re-election and one of most likely opponents is the fiscally-responsible Walker. Expect Doyle or his surrogates to claim that Walker was trying to keep down the black vote. They'll point out how Walker was being stingy about ballots but "forget" to mention how many were actually used. In essence, this ballot battle was the first clash of the 2006 governor's race.

Owen at Boots & Sabers writes,

In the end, the Republicans were right. Mayor Tom Barrett, Governor Doyle, and the rest of the Democratic establishment wasted the taxpayers’ money by printing a ridiculous number of ballots. Worse, they did so for no other reason than to create a partisan political issue that they thought would help John Kerry. Do you think that we can expect the Democratic Party to repay the taxpayers for all of the wasted ballots? Don’t hold your breath.

There's one important detail that should be mentioned. The ballots were returned to the county on Wednesday. A great time to make sure something gets reported but not read is just before a major holiday. Talk radio yappers are away and won't comment on it until Monday when some will consider it "old news."

"665,000 Unused Ballots Returned"