February 02, 2005

Going Ward by Ward

Greg Borowski strikes again with more information on how messed up Milwaukee's election was.

Record-keeping surrounding the Nov. 2 presidential election in Milwaukee is so flawed that in 17 wards there were at least 100 more votes recorded than people listed by the city as voting there.

In two wards, one on the south side and one on the north side, the gap is more than 500, with fewer than half the votes cast in each ward accounted for in the city's computer system, a Journal Sentinel review has found.

Such gaps were present at different levels in nearly all of the city wards and could hamper the investigation launched last week by federal and local authorities into possible voter fraud by giving an incomplete or inaccurate picture of who actually voted.

They also raise questions about the level of oversight of how the city records who voted in each ward - an important safeguard that, properly done, can be used to spot double voting and other problems.

And unless the gaps can be fully resolved, they leave room for critics to allege that ballot boxes were stuffed in the city, which went heavily to Democrat John Kerry over President Bush in a state with one of the closest margins in the country.

From looking at the Journal Sentinel's map of the really messed up wards we see them scattered across the city. The only real concentration was in the far north side, wards 258, 259, and 260. Combined those three wards had 490 more ballots cast than voters listed as voting. Such a concentration could mean a concerted fraud effort was happening in that area. Three wards that also caught my eye: Ward 312 at Marquette University, Ward 39 at UW-Milwaukee, and Ward 44 near UWM. Wards where university students votes makes me suspicious because in 2000 Marquette University students bragged about voting more than once. One of the admitted polling places was Marquette Alumni Memorial Union, Ward 312. These are wards investigators should look at first.

From this mess it will be very hard for investigators to find specific instances of voter fraud. That's find for Mayor Barrett who can tell the newspaper, "I don't think we have seen any evidence of fraud." With such a messed up system he's right.

Borowski mentions how Milwaukee's poor voting process can be vulnerable to fraud:

For instance, voter information incorrectly recorded in the computer system can mean a newly registered voter is not listed on the rolls for the next election, on Feb. 15.

If a voter changes addresses and the computer does not remove the bad address, it leaves an opening in the system where someone bent on fraud can readily vote twice. Such duplicate registrations happened hundreds of times, due to what Artison described as a computer "glitch."

And, of course, if hundreds of names appear incorrectly in the records as duplicate voters, it can be almost impossible to identify and weed out those who actually vote twice.

As for the "what me worry?" editorial board of the Journal Sentinel they continue to be dishonest about requiring voters to show photo ID. They don't want such a law to be in effect.

In their lecture they tell us to be patient. They think Republicans are in too much of a hurry to pass the law.

Lawmakers should become better acquainted with the virtue of patience while a state audit and a local-federal criminal probe are under way.

They call the photo ID law the GOP's "a cure before the diagnosis." If the board were honest they tell its readers Rep. Jeff Stone introduced the photo ID bill in the last legislative session. Gov. Doyle vetoed it. Before that, Scott Walker was the bill's champion. Concerned citizens, not just partisan Republicans, have been calling for tightening up of Wisconsin's voting laws since 2000 when we discovered a Democratic operative using cigarettes to bribe the homeless to vote. This issue has been argued for four years. Plus, critics like myself don't see a photo ID requirement as the solution. What also must be changed is ending same-day registration. Heck, maybe we should use the ink Iraqi voters dipped their fingers into.

"Some Sites Show Huge Vote Gaps"