WKOW: Anti-Recall Man Repeatedly Harassed Pro-Recall Residents at Their Homes

Recall Scott Walker
Fight Harassment

Update: Stoughton man cited for allegedly taking a swing at recall volunteer.

We can't ignore this. No matter that politicians see no need to protect this woman's sense of security in her own home.

Waukesha County man uses TV news video to phone and challenge recall signers at night. Police have been contacted.

“It’s 10:30 at night and there’s apparently somebody who knows where you live. It’s just a very unnerving and frightening feeling,” said Dane County resident and Recall Scott Walker supporter named Michelle.

By Tony Galli at WKOW News

A Hartland man told 27 News he used television news video to contact people who signed recall petitions against Governor Scott Walker, prompting at least one person to contact police.

“It wasn’t a harassing call by any means,” Kevin Stoll told 27 News.

A Dane County resident named Michelle, who asked that her identity be kept private because Stoll had already obtained some of her personal information, characterized a call she received from him Nov. 25 as harassing.

“It’s 10:30 at night and there’s apparently somebody who knows where you live. It’s just a very unnerving and frightening feeling.”

Michelle said Stoll was a stranger to her, refused to identify himself and challenged her to defend her decision to sign a recall petition.

“When this person seemed to be getting a little bit hostile, I ended the phone call and immediately contacted the authorities.”

Stoll told 27 News he used video from a 27 News story on the recall effort to get identifying information on people who signed petitions. The story was ninety seconds in length and included less than ten seconds of names, numbers and signatures on recall petitions, but that videotape was in motion and not highlighted.

Another Dane County resident, who also requested anonymity, said Stoll called her home three times shortly after the 27 News broadcast. The resident said she refused to answer Stoll’s final call, but an answering machine recorded it.

“You can’t even defend your position, now you won’t answer the phone,” the caller said in the recorded message reviewed by 27 News.

“You’ve signed a petition, where they put your name and number up on TV and you’re behaving like a (expletive) coward.”

Michelle said a Madison police officer conducted a preliminary investigation into the call she received and told her in the absence of the caller using abusive or threatening language or making repeated calls to her, the hands of law enforcement were tied. A Madison police spokesperson has yet to comment on the department’s handling of Michelle’s complaint.

Stoll indicated to 27 News he may be involved in verifying recall petition signatures, but provided no specifics and mentioned no affiliations with any political groups. Available online campaign finance records show Stoll contributed $400 to a republican district attorney in 2002.

Michael Steele Keeps Up ACORN Lie

ACORN did it.

Yeah, new Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, is steering the GOP in a new direction.

This is business as usual on the right, see Lies and the Lying Liars Exposed.

And read this nonsense circulated in an e-mail through Human Events:

... It seems the Obama Administration has plans to rig the Census results.

President Obama's old friends from ACORN, the leftist, urban ‘community’ organization with a long history of promoting vote fraud, has been chosen by the Administration as a ‘partner’ with the Census Bureau to determine population counts in cities around the country.

With this group's track record of coming up with countless fraudulent voter registrations in heavily Democrat areas to sway elections to ultra-liberals, you can be sure they'll be manipulating population numbers as well.

And after receiving millions in political payback from the Democrats' recently passed ‘Stimulus’ Bill, ACORN's community organizers are eager to once again take action to aid their old friend in the White House.

Why is this important? The U.S. population has shifted in the last ten years. States like Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania (all states Obama won in 2008) have smaller populations, and states like Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina (all states that John McCain carried) have gained population.

The trend illustrates that urban strongholds, which favor Democrats, continue to lose population to more decentralized areas in states more likely to lean Republican.

If the Democrats and their friends at ACORN have their way, the Census will only ‘estimate’ state populations and therefore be subject to political calculations. And surely their estimate will be far higher than the actual number of people, and voters, present.

We must not let the Democrats and their radical leftist allies falsify the U.S. Census and manipulate elections in their favor. Our democracy, and the principle of ‘One Person, One Vote’ are in jeopardy.

Krugman on the GOP

The reality-based community has long asserted what Paul Krugman sums up in his column this morning in the Times: That the GOP is more a faction dedicated to power acquisition that is in direct conflict with the American people than it is a political party representing citizen views.

Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision. ... That’s why the soon-to-be gone administration’s failure is bigger than Mr. Bush himself: it represents the end of the line for a political strategy that dominated the scene for more than a generation.
The reality of this strategy’s collapse has not, I believe, fully sunk in with some observers.

That's an understatement.

BREAKING: Federal Judge Compels GOP IT Guru Mike Connell to Give Deposition in Ohio '04 Election Case

Update: In related GOP vote-suppression news, Colorado District Court Judge Orders CO Secretary of State to Cease and Desist Voter Purges

We'll what we see in Ohio.

Check out Federal Judge Compels GOP IT Guru Mike Connell to Give Deposition.

The Republican IT guru, recently described as a 'high tech Forrest Gump' for his proclivity to be ;at the scene; of so many troubling elections since 2000, and even at the heart of the 'lost' White House email scandal, has been ordered by a federal judge to appear for an under-oath deposition next Monday in Ohio.

The BRAD BLOG has learned that Mike Connell, the Republican IT guru whose company, GovTech Solutions, created Ohio's 2004 election results computer network appeared in federal court today, as compelled, and has been ordered to appear for his deposition on Monday, November 3, just 24 hours before Election Day 2008.

Today's court order came after a contentious hearing, at which Connell was present. The hearing was part of a long-standing voting rights violations lawsuit, King Lincoln v. Blackwell, as previously covered by The BRAD BLOG and by Velvet Revolution's Election Protection Strike Force here and here.

Feingold Hits Van Hollen

Update: Former AG Lautenschlager: Van Hollen wants to suppress voters

From the Capital Times:

October 31, 2008

The Honorable J.B. Van Hollen
Attorney General
State of Wisconsin
Wisconsin Department of Justice
P.O. Box 7857
Madison, WI 53707-7857

Dear Mr. Attorney General:


I am writing to express my strong concern about your October 28 announcement that 'as part of election integrity efforts the Wisconsin Department of Justice will be sending assistant attorneys general and special agents from the Division of Criminal Investigation to various locations around the state on Election Day ... to ensure compliance with state laws governing elections.' I am unaware of any specific criminal investigation to which these efforts pertain.

I appreciate that your office must be prepared to respond to incidents, if any, that may arise on Election Day. But the announcement and execution of your plans may have the effect of discouraging legitimate voters from attempting to cast their votes, and I urge you to reconsider your decision. If, however, you decide to proceed with these plans, I ask that you provide detailed information about how Department of Justice employees will be deployed, including the locations to which they will be deployed, how those locations were chosen, and a detailed description or copies of the instructions these employees will be given.


In order to try to ensure that legitimate voters are not discouraged or intimidated by your actions, I also encourage you to ensure that criminal law enforcement personnel are not deployed at polling stations. It is widely acknowledged that the presence of criminal law enforcement personnel at polling stations may discourage and intimidate legitimate voters -- even where the intent may be to facilitate voter access. Wan J. Kim, who served as assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division from 2005 to 2007, has observed that '(federal) prosecutors being involved in voter access issues would lead to intimidation at the polls.' As a precaution against any possibility or appearance of intimidation, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on September 23 that the federal government employees deployed to polling stations this Election Day will not include criminal prosecutors.

I appreciate your immediate attention to this request and look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Feingold
United States Senator

Bring Cell Phones to Fight DOJ Asst AGs and Special Agents

- Special Note: See http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/wioffices for a list of Obama offices. - Fight back on Election Day against Van Hollen's "election integrity efforts."

If you witness any obstruction or intimidation on Election Day by any of Van Hollen's people, call: 1 866 OUR VOTE and report it, and call Obama's people.

Don't back down and don't take NO for an answer for your right to vote. Fight!

If you have a cell phone and see Van Hollen's hacks harassing or intimidating a voter, document it discreetly on your cell phone camera, and call 1 866 OUR VOTE right away to get the incident aired and rectified. Or simply take notes, gather facts and report them, get the ward number and time of day.

Obama's people have 1,000s of lawyers prepared for Van Hollen's last-minute dirty tricks. And polling places throughout the state are filled with numerous Obama supporters dedicated to the rule of law and the right to vote.

Find your local Obama headquarters and them know what is happening, especially in Milwaukee where those uppity blacks insist on voting. See http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/wioffices for a list of Obama offices.

McCain's only shot at winning Wisconsin is to suppress Milwaukee blacks, and they know this fact well.

GOP Attacks Can Be Laughed off Now

The Wisconsin GOP is a lot like the national GOP except it is dumber and more disingenuous.

Even now, the Wisconsin Republicans think the path to a McCain victory is to rebrand Obama this late in the game with the tired "Who is Barack Obama?" attack.

Pathetic, but come election night after work: Fun times. Check out the new GOP mailing above.

McCain: Bad Liar and Loser

Update: Politics of bigotry may finally be over
Amid the voter suppression, the GOP corruption (for example Wisconsin Atty Gen. J.B. Van Hollen, US Atty Gen. Michael Mukasey), the appeals to fear and xenophobia (one can go on), an observer can plainly see why John McCain is going to lose.

Sure, the structure of the campaign in light of the economy and a divided GOP are instructive.

But one other aspect of the McCain campaign is clear: He's a horrible liar, hence an unsuccessful GOP presidential nominee for which lying is a necessity to winning a presidential general election. [The same imperative does not apply to the Democratic nominee but that's for a different column.]

"Detractory or defamatory lies should not be quite opposite to the qualities the person is supposed to have, " writes Dr. John Arbuthnot in Treatise on the Art of Political Lying (1714), (cited by Hitchens, Grand Street, Autumn, 1985).

In other words, the political lie has to be plausible. It must fit onto the existing image if it is to be believed, and the target audience of the lie has to be susceptible.

As Wall Street veers wildly and Americans fear for their families' futures, McCain and Palin are repeatedly and desperately hitting Obama for being a "redistributor," a President Robinhood who wants to take your money for which you work and then give the money away to others.

Give away to whom? It is darkly suggested in the paranoid, fearful minds of the Republican base though not explicitly stated, that blacks and Mexicans are the amorphous 'others' whom we must fear, along with their bag man Obama.

McCain and Palin have two problems with their political lies.

Never mind the incoherence with which Palin and McCain deliver the message, the existing psychological matrix of the electorate is inadequate for McCain's purposes; the public sees minorities absent the hostility of 30 years ago.

That's why few "independents" and "moderates" are buying McCain's snake oil.

Considering Obama's obvious qualities, the lie of his taking away our money and giving it away just does not ring true.

Not in Obama's biography that is well known now, not in Obama's steady debate performances, not in Obama's reasonable-sounding economic and tax proposals, not in his clear empathy for working families, and certainly not in the money being taken away right now from our retirement accounts by the cold free markets and years of Republican rule that Obama is in no way a part of, but with whom McCain is intimately and indisputably tied.

And as millions of Americans see $10,000s of their savings go down the drain, the "redistributor" brand just does not seem all that threatening anyway; it even has a certain appeal.

The lie is implausible and the audience is no longer there to believe it.

That's what makes McCain an ineffective liar and a political loser.

- via mal contends

Voter Suppression Incidents 2008

The Brennan Center for Justice is compiling a comprehensive synopsis of current voter suppression incidents around the country of which McCain co-chair and Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen' suit comprises just one of many.

The Voter Suppression Incidents 2008 is an excellent resource, please check it out.

And spread the word: The nonpartisan Election protection coalition (http://www.866ourvote.org/) is fighting voter suppression and is a great resource. Look them up with any problems or concerns: Call 1 866 OUR VOTE (1 866 687 8683).

Bush Seeks Forced Provisional Voting in Ohio

Incredible! Bush wants the US DOJ to look into the Ohio voting controversy, seeking forced provisional voting that suppresses legal voters.

After being shot down by the US Supreme Court on using the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) for the purpose of declaring eligible voters to be tentatively ineligible because of database mismatches - a purpose that the text of HAVA expressively forbids - Bush and the Republicans will not give up.

As the Milwaukee Branch of NAACP and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association write in their amicus brief in the Van Hollen v. GAB Wisconsin case, provisional voting is inherently suppressive, and many provisional voters will not be able to come back the next day to further corroborate their legal voting status, and will leave the polling place not knowing if their votes count.

A provisional ballot is a second-class vote. The voter leaves the polling place not knowing whether his or her vote will count. He or she will only find out by calling a toll-free number or checking a website. If the answer is that the vote was not counted, the voter will be given a reason, but by then it will be too late to correct. That voter will have been directly and absolutely deprived of the right to vote without a meaningful remedy. (Link to brief filed by Milwaukee Branch of NAACP and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association in Van Hollen v. GAB.)

This will not be a problem in Wisconsin, but the GOP is not giving up on stealing Ohio, again.

From RollCall:
President Bush is asking the Justice Department to look into whether 200,000 Buckeye State poll-goers must use provisional ballots on Election Day because their names do not match state databases.

White House spokesman Carlton Carroll confirmed Friday that the president will forward a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey from House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), requesting that the Justice Department look into whether the state’s voter rolls comply with the Help America Vote Act.
In a letter dated on Friday, the House GOP leader wrote that with Election Day 'less than two weeks away, immediate action by the Department is not only warranted, but also crucial.'

Folks, we have a major political party, the Republicans, who will do almost anything to stay in power. It's time for mass civil disobedience, something, to disrupt this outlaw element in the American political body. This is not a Party that is deserving of any respect whatsoever in our democracy.

Brennan Center on Van Hollen Voter Suppression Decision

Update: Incredible! Bush Wants DOJ to Look Into Ohio Voting, Seeks Forced Provisional Voting That Suppresses Legal Voters - From RollCall

As we watch the historic threat to our financial system, good news is in the air politically and legally.

From Adam Skaggs on the dismissal of the voter suppression case.

In Wisconsin this morning, Judge Maryann Sumi dismissed all claims in a case brought against the state's elections agency by the Wisconsin Attorney General. We've written about this case before, and why it was troubling: if the court hadn't thrown out the Attorney General's case, it could have put between 53,000 and 200,000 Wisconsin Voters at risk of having to vote provisional ballots. And, historically, as few as 30%of provisional ballots cast in Wisconsin actually get counted.
In rejecting the Attorney General's arguments, the court correctly reached two important conclusions (among other reasons for tossing the case). First, it rightly concluded that nothing in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) requires states to condition a voter's eligibility to vote on a successful database match - an argument we pressed in our amicus brief. Second, the court concluded that denying a voter's right to have their ballot counted because of a typo or data entry error made by a government clerk violated Section 1971 of the Voting Rights Act, the so-called 'materiality provision.' (A federal court relied on that law, which provides that no voter can be denied the right to register or vote based on a mistake that's not material to determining the voter's eligibility, in striking down Washington State's strict no match, no vote law when we challenged it in 2006. More recently, we argued that the materiality provision prohibited rejecting an Ohio voter's request for an absentee ballot just because the voter failed to mark a superfluous check-box.) Although the Attorney General has said he'll appeal the court's ruling, the decision was absolutely correct on the merits, and we are hopeful that the appellate courts won't waste any time before affirming the dismissal. That way Wisconsin election officials will be able to get back to the important business of ensuring a smooth election.

What we know as Wisconsin citizens is that Van Hollen is a liar and a corrupt partisan unfit for office.

Wisconsin Obama worker allegedly assaulted; victim accused of being with "ACORN"

Here's an appalling story that surely is a violation of civil rights worthy of investigation by US Atty Biskupic and AG Van Hollen.

From RFDblog at Kos:

This is scary stuff! Here in Caledonia, Wisconsin (near Racine) one of our volunteers was physically assaulted by an angry man. 58 year-old Nancy Takehara of Chicago told the story:

"The next thing I know he’s telling us we’re not his people, we’re probably with ACORN, and he started screaming and raving," Takehara said. "He grabbed me by the back of the neck. I thought he was going to rip my hair out of my head. He was pounding on my head and screaming. The man terrified me."


Think about this. Where would this person have ever heard of ACORN? Why would he be so upset? Candidates like to say "elections have consequences."

Well, election rhetoric also has consequences.

"This negative stuff has to stop," said Takehara. "We’re all Americans. This is all about protecting our democracy, not about attacking each other."

Here is a link to another article by the local newspaper.

Here’s what totally freaks me out. If you read the comments on the newspaper article, you see the same hate rhetoric. And worse you see people giving energy to this hate speech by trying to argue in the comments.

And here is what gives me hope. By the time Nancy Takehara got home, there was a message waiting for her from Senator Obama. She called the number back and actually talked to Senator Obama.

"Sen. Obama understood, reassured me, he was wonderful," Takehara said. "It made me feel connected to this government again."

Elections have consequences. Let’s turn all of these right-wing hate mongers out of office and take back our country. Go vote.

America is not a one-party state

No words of condemnation suffice to describe the repugnant anti-democratic actions of J.B. Van Hollen and the Republicans on voter suppression.

Here's another piece that comes close. From the Democratic Strategist:

Let’s say it simply – America is not a one-party state. The people in the federal law enforcement and criminal justice systems are supposed to stay out of politics – not work to support the party in power. There are specific rules and long-standing institutional traditions in the DOJ against publicly announcing a major political investigation during the last few days of an election campaign. ...

McCain likes to argue that 'I’m not George Bush'. But Dems can fairly reply 'No, but the DOJ will obviously be run in exactly the same, repulsive way that it was during the Bush administration.'

In fact, it’s actually ironic. The last-minute intrusion of the FBI into the 2008 campaign actually gave John McCain the ideal opportunity to show that he really would be a different kind of Republican from George W. Bush. Instead, he used the opportunity to show that he will be exactly the same.

GOP Voter Fraud Hoax Gets Kocked Around

The desperate GOP is lying in unison. It's what they're good at.

And truth and civil rights aren't going to stand in the way. It would nice if just one GOP official would stand up and say, 'This is wrong. Suppressing voters is wrong,' Dare to dream.

- "Today, Senator Ted Kanavas (R-Brookfield) and Representative Rich Zipperer (R-Brookfield) wrote a letter to Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen asking him to protect the integrity of the election process by protecting every legal vote in the upcoming November election." (WisPolitics)

"On Tuesday, U.S. Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Menomonee Falls), Tom Petri (R-Fond du Lac) and Paul Ryan (R-Janesville) sent letters to Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, and to Wisconsin's two U.S. attorneys, Steven Biskupic and Erik Peterson, calling for an investigation into ACORN." (MJS)

Andrew Burmon has a piece in Salon knocking down the lie: Behind the GOP's voter fraud hysteria As Republicans warn of catastrophe at the polls, an expert on election fraud explains the real partisan hoax -- the suppression of Democratic votes.

Let’s talk about the Ballot Access and Voting Integrity initiative that was started under Ashcroft in 2002. It was advertised as a program that would combat voter fraud and voter suppression equally. But if you look at the program, it actually was geared almost entirely toward voter fraud. They wanted to see if they could bring cases against individual voters. The [federal] government has spent a lot of money pursuing this over the years and convicted almost no one. Then we hear all this propaganda about how much voter fraud there is.
At the very least the Department of Justice has had its priorities backward. There are thousands of people having trouble casting ballots and the federal government has decided to go after poor people in Milwaukee and Florida to create the impression that there is voter fraud. The U.S. attorney firing scandal made it hard for anyone to claim that the Bush Justice Department wasn’t politicizing voter fraud. ...The Democrats in this age have no reason to pretend that voter fraud is a serious issue, but the Republicans, particularly this year, have a very good reason to say that voter fraud is rampant. It is a simple three-step process. Fraud allegations lead to restrictive voter laws, which lead to a class-skewed electorate. As the Democrats try to get out the vote, Republicans will try to stop it.

Obama Wants 911 Highjackers to Have Valid Drivers' Licenses

I just knew that there is something about Barack Hussein Obama that the white half of me should not and cannot trust. The same goes to those liberal soft-on-voter-fraud types.

To all of you liberals, and I'm one of them: We cannot say we were not warned, and: Those patriots in Waukesha are right!

From a Human Events fundraising e-mail:

Dear Fellow American:

We have just weeks to go before Election Day . . . time is running short for us to avert a major disaster for our country. That disaster's name is President Barack Obama.

But this disaster can be averted. I'm confident about this - even though the slanted media are overstating Obama's inevitability. ...

Barack Obama is not simply a risky choice as our next president - He is a dangerous one. ...

But there is one issue almost all Americans agree on: Illegal aliens should not be given driver's licenses.

Help Expose Obama's License Plan - Click Here Now

... Did you know that Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 ring leader, had a valid Florida driver's license?

Did you know 13 of the 19 hijackers had obtained valid driver's licenses? Armed with these licenses, eight of the hijackers even registered to vote!

Here is the shocking fact: Obama strongly supports giving illegal aliens in America driver's licenses.

He said as much during two Democratic debates earlier this year.

Dem Legal Brief: Van Hollen Is "Dead Wrong" in Suppression Suit

Wisconsin can lead the way on October 23 in the most intensely political arena in American society: The courtroom.

Pretensions aside, the judicial branch of government is a dressed-up tool of political power.

As in most areas of government, today’s Republican Party is committed to acquiring power at extreme costs, indifferent at best to the rule of law and democratic values.

In J.B. Van Hollen-Republican Party v. Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) et al, we may see a public display of how low the GOP has gone when Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi rules on a motion to dismiss Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s futile attempt at voter suppression.

No doubt Van Hollen will be rewarded for his political fidelity, while civil rights, the rule of law, and voting rights—well, these remain mere liberal concerns to the smirking GOP.

But so eager is Van Hollen to suppress voters this November using the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that he grossly misreads the federal statute and misses by a mile the requirements for the extraordinary writ of mandamus judicial order that he seeks to enforce his peculiar view that he should be the official instructing the GAB how to do its job for the benefit of Senator John McCain.

Let’s hope Judge Sumi offers a detailed explanation in her rulings exposing as much as possible the nature of this despicable abuse of office by Van Hollen. That way the political system can hold Van Hollen accountable for his betrayal of the people of Wisconsin.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s brief offers insights into Van Hollen’s vacuity and nihilistic political values, though not describing his arguments as such:

The lawsuit has numerous procedural defects, each of which independently precludes this court form reaching the merits of the complaint. … (Including that the) Attorney General has no authority to change the eligibility standards for Wisconsin voters or compel the GAB to change eligibility standards.

However, it is vitally important that the Court, as well as the voting public, understand that on top of all of the procedural issues, there is not a shred of merit to the Attorney General’s legal position on the meaning of HAVA, and not a shred of evidence that there is any voter fraud that exists or could be revealed through retroactive HAVA checks. In light of the extraordinary and alarmist rhetoric included in the Attorney General’s Complaint and subsequent filings (suggesting the Court must act or the entire Presidential election may be thrown into doubt) the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) will address the merits directly.

First, a failed match between the voter rolls and the DOT or SSA databases does not reflect any defect in a voter’s eligibility — rather, it reflects a mismatch of information between two separately-created computer databases. Second, HAVA does not mandate that Wisconsin perform retroactive ‘checks’ on registered voters on or after a date certain — rather, it requires that the state ‘coordinate’ its statewide voter registration database with the databases of the DOT and SSA, leaving the method and means of doing so in the discretion of the state. Third, HAVA does not mandate that a state take any action impacting the eligibility of a voter in the case of a non-match — rather, it leaves such issues up to the discretion of the state.

Wisconsin has already exercised this discretion.

After hearing substantial and undisputed evidence that failed matches were the result of database irregularities and clerical errors, and that no fraud whatsoever has been detected, the GAB voted 5-1 on August 28, 2008 to adopt a rule preserving a voter’s basic rights in the event that an attempt to match her registration information against other systems did not succeed. This rule ensures that Wisconsin complies with one of the central provisions of HAVA, which requires states to adopt ‘safeguards to ensure that eligible voters are not removed in error from the official list of eligible voters,’ and prohibits states from rejecting registered voters based upon nonmaterial, technical errors in the registration process.

This means that the Attorney General (is) not only dead wrong about what HAVA requires and the duties and obligations of the GAB under Wisconsin law, but also that the relief seemingly sought by the Attorney General (and explicitly sought by the RPW) would itself violate substantive provisions of HAVA by potentially disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters based upon technical discrepancies between bureaucratic databases.

NYT: Voter Suppression Illegal and Widespread

Update: Montana GOP drops registration challenges
via mal contends - Today's NYT has a piece by Ian Urbina with the not reassuring news that Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has plenty of company in using the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to try to suppress voters.

On Monday, the Ohio Republican Party filed a motion in federal court against the secretary of state to get the list of all names that have been flagged by the Social Security database since Jan. 1. The motion seeks to require that any voter who does not clear up a discrepancy be required to vote using a provisional ballot.

As the brief filed by Milwaukee Branch of NAACP and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association reads in Von Hollen's suppression scheme:

A provisional ballot is a second-class vote. The voter leaves the polling place not knowing whether his or her vote will count. He or she will only find out by calling a toll-free number or checking a website. If the answer is that the vote was not counted, the voter will be given a reason, but by then it will be too late to correct. That voter will have been directly and absolutely deprived of the right to vote without a meaningful remedy.

WisPolitics' Recording Shows Van Hollen Lied

Update III: Thrown out of court by Judge Maryann Sumi, in October 2008 never to see the inside of a courtroom again.

Update II: For up-to-date developments, see the Election Law at Moritz site, including the GAB's brief for a motion to dismiss.

Update: WisPolitics piece at http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=138219.

Contradicting his earlier claims that "(there was no discussion with anybody involved in leadership with the Republican Party (or the McCain campaign) about this (voting rule) lawsuit before it was brought," as Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has said earlier last month, WisPolitics has uncovered new audio (posted at WisPolitics) revealing Van Hollen promising action on alleged "voter fraud" during an address at the Republican National Convention held in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Said Joe Wineke, Wisconsin Democratic Party chair, in a press release. "If J.B. Van Hollen is claiming this lawsuit isn't political, then why did he discuss it with the RPW chair at a partisan political convention and then send signals to fellow Republicans that he was mobilizing the Department of Justice to take action?"

Though Van Hollen's suit is now effectively moot as any proposed judicial remedy would not be achievable just two weeks out from the election when a Dane County judge is expected to rule on the merits, the significance of Van Hollen caught on tape is a smoking gun that the suit is partisan and that Van Hollen lied about it.

Van Hollen has been roundly hit for his filing a legal complaint in light of the imperative of Wisconsin to establish a centralized, computerized voter registration list "coordinated with other agency databases within the State" such as the DOT, as mandated by federal law, specifcally the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which Van Hollen cites in the DOJ Complaint, saying that HAVA requires additional verification of all the voter registrations filed since January 2006.

Van Hollen and the Republican Party contend that the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) has not met its legal obligations to bring Wisconsin into compliance with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), though the GAB formulated rules to implement HAVA this year after considering input from the Wisconsin GOP, the Wisconsin Democratic Party and the Obama campaign.

The GOP did not agree with the Board's decision.

The rules are not broad enough for the GOP that needs to suppress votes to have a shot at winning Wisconsin, though its hopes are fading fast, according to recent polls.

The problem for the GOP's proposed rule, rejected by the GAB, is that voters' syncing up with state databases would result in long lines, frustration, and confusion on what is expected to be a historically high turn-out election bringing out 10,000s of casual voters expected to vote largely Democratic, especially in high-density, urban areas.

As reported in the Capital Times: "The audio posted ... on wispolitics.com features Van Hollen telling a group, 'We are going to do our best as the lawyers for the state of Wisconsin, as the defenders and protectors of the law of the state of Wisconsin ... to defend your right to have your vote matter.'"

As reported in Talking Points Memo, in the audio of Van Hollen, he can be heard saying:

"We're out there fighting to make sure that within the context of 'little-L,' liberal voter registration law that we have in the state of Wisconsin, that even though in the context of that law we can't prevent everybody from voting who isn't entitled to vote and preserve the right for everybody who is entitled to vote, to vote, but we are going to do our best, as the lawyers for the state of Wisconsin, as the defenders and protectors of the law of the state of Wisconsin, of the people who are there to defend your right to have your vote matter ... We are out there front and center everyday and you'll be hearing much more from the Department of Justice in the coming months about doing what we can to make sure that those people who have illegally and illegitimately registered to vote, don't have the opportunity on election day to show up and take away your vote by casting one that is not legal."

It was first reported in the Wisconsin State Journal by Mark Pitsch that Reince Priebus, the Wisconsin GOP party chairman, "had multiple conversations with Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's top aide before Van Hollen filed the lawsuit against the state election agency to compel expanded voter registration checks."
Organized voter fraud has been shown to be a fiction, by the Brennan Center for Justice and a state-federal committee looking into past GOP allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 election.

One of the main targets of the GOP/Van Hollen suppression suit are Milwaukee blacks brought out in record numbers in the February presidential primary.

Van Hollen's proposed rule to suppress the turn-out in the presidential election, would place a burden and slow down many casual black voters who do not happen to have up-to-date driver's licenses.

As Andrew Hacker's piece in a recent New York Review of Books reads:

A Wisconsin survey published in 2005 was more precise (in the GOP effort to prevent Democratically-voting blacks from voting). No fewer than 53 percent of black adults in Milwaukee County were not licensed to drive, compared with 15 percent of white adults in the remainder of the state. According to its author, similar disparities will be found across the nation. [1] [[1] John Pawasarat, The Driver License Status of the Voting Age Population in Wisconsin (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute, June 2005), p. 1.]

The NAACP is now a party in the suit along with League of Women Voters, the Democratic Party, teachers, unions, and civil rights groups.

Brennan Center Releases Voter Purging Report, It's Ugly

Update: CBS News on Voter Purging, Little-Known, Problem-Ridden Process That Could Endanger Your Vote



The Brennan Center for Justice has just released its comprehensive report on massive voter purging, the practice of striking voters from voter rolls.

Download Executive Summary
Download Full Report

Wisconsin is fortunate in that the General Accountability Board has steadfastly refused to prematurely strike voters from its voting rolls, despite the GOP and Attorney General and McCain co-chair J.B. Van Hollen's efforts. In fact, the "Board also decided not to adopt a rule flagging voters on the poll list ...," much less striking a name from the voting rolls.

Writes Myrna Pérez, for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice on the national report:

Voter registration lists, also called voter rolls, are the gateway to voting. A citizen typically cannot cast a vote that will count unless her name appears on the voter registration rolls. [Wisconsin allows voters to register at the polls.] ... Far too frequently, however, eligible, registered citizens show up to vote and discover their names have been removed from the voter lists. States maintain voter rolls in an inconsistent and unaccountable manner. Officials strike voters from the rolls through a process that is shrouded in secrecy, prone to error, and vulnerable to manipulation.

Voter Purges Findings

- Purges rely on error-ridden lists.

- Voters are purged secretly and without notice.

- Bad 'matching' criteria leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges.

- Insufficient oversight leaves voters vulnerable to manipulated purges.

The report also includes Policy Recommendations listed below with text:

Policy Recommendations

No effective national standard governs voter purges; in fact, methods vary from state to state and even from county to county. A voter’s risk of being purged depends in part on where in the state he or she lives. The lack of consistent rules and procedures means that this risk is unpredictable and difficult to guard against. While some variation is inevitable, every American should benefit from basic protections against erroneous purges.
Based on our review of purge practices and statutes in a number of jurisdictions, we make the following policy recommendations to reduce the occurrence of erroneous purges and protect eligible voters from erroneous purges.

A. Transparency and Accountability for Purges
States should:

- Develop and publish uniform, non-discriminatory rules for purges.

- Provide public notice of an impending purge. Two weeks before any county-wide or state-wide purge, states should announce the purge and explain how it is to be conducted. Individual voters must be notified and given the opportunity to correct any errors or omissions, or demonstrate eligibility before they are stricken from the rolls.

- Develop and publish rules for an individual to prevent or remedy her erroneous inclusion in an impending purge. Eligible citizens should have a clear way to restore their names to voter rolls.

- Stop using failure to vote as a trigger for a purge. States should send address confirmation notices only when they believe a voter has moved.

- Develop directives and criteria with respect to the authority to purge voters. The removal of any record should require authorization by at least two officials.

- Preserve purged voter registration records.

Make purge lists publicly available.

B. Strict Criteria for the Development of Purge Lists

States should:

- Ensure a high degree of certainty that names on a purge list belong there. Purge lists should be reviewed multiple times to ensure that only ineligible voters are included.

- Establish strict criteria for matching voter lists with other sources.

- Audit purge source lists. If purge lists are developed by matching names on the voter registration list to names from other sources like criminal conviction lists, the quality and accuracy of the information in these lists should be routinely “audited” or checked.

- Monitor duplicate removal procedures. States should implement uniform rules and procedures for eliminating duplicate registrations.

C. “Fail-Safe” Provisions to Protect Voters

States should ensure that:

- No voter is turned away from the polls because her name is not found on the voter rolls. Instead, would-be voters should be given provisional ballots, to which they are entitled under the law.

Election workers are given clear instructions and adequate training as to HAVA’s provisional balloting requirements.

D. Universal Voter Registration
States should:

- Take the affirmative responsibility to build clean voter rolls consisting of all eligible citizens. Building on other government lists or using other innovative methods, states can make sure that all eligible citizens, and only eligible citizens, are on the voter rolls.

- Ensure that voters stay on the voter rolls when they move within the state.
Provide a fail-safe mechanism of Election Day registration for those individuals who are missed or whose names are erroneously purged from the voter rolls.

About the Author
Myrna Pérez is counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, focusing on a variety of voting rights and election administration issues including the Brennan Center’s efforts to restore the vote to people with felony convictions. Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Pérez was the Civil Rights Fellow at Relman & Dane, a civil rights law firm in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Columbia Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Ms. Pérez clerked for the Honorable Anita B. Brody of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and for the Honorable Julio M. Fuentes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

'Ballot Security' in Wisconsin Has Civil Rights Workers Wary

It has brought to our attention that "(s)enior Justice Department officials told civil-rights organizations they plan to deploy hundreds of poll monitors in November to prevent voting-rights violations and deter fraud (Perez, Wall Street Journal, September 9. 2008).

In light of the Wisconsin DOJ/GOP's efforts at voter suppression (that now looks to fail) and the McCain Campaign project sending misleading absentee ballots to voters, the presence of U.S. DOJ officials at polling places has civil rights groups nervous, though it's not confirmed that the DOJ officials will be in Wisconsin at this point.

As Evan Perez writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Some critics of the Bush administration said the Justice Department appears to be giving equal weight to preventing vote fraud and enforcing laws aimed at helping minorities cast ballots. 'For the department, the focus should be on voter access,' said Kristen Clarke, voter-participation co-director for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. 'It does seem the criminal division is spending some of their capital on vote fraud, which is disconcerting.' ... In the 2006 election, the department came under criticism from Democrats and some judges for pursuing cases involving Democrats that courts later ruled should never have been brought.

The U.S. DOJ pursuing voting so-called fraud cases in Wisconsin that should never have been brought is not a new development in Wisconsin. As Scott Horton lays out in Harper's (Sept. 7, 2007):

We know that (US Atty) Steven Biskupic, the U.S. Attorney in Milwaukee, was initially put on a list of those to be fired by Karl Rove’s office. Then suddenly Mr. Biskupic got deeply engaged in a series of truly dubious cases, all of which had a distinctly Rovian political flavor. First, Biskupic became one of the nation’s most enthusiastic participants in the 'voting fraud' fraud. He brought an array of insane cases, including one against a grandmother, which were detailed by The New York Times in an acid review of Biskupic’s mercenary political style. These cases generally involved voters who made honest mistakes about registration, but were prosecuted anyway (with many convicted). The targets were always Democrats who were from the major threat communities publicly identified by Rove—minority groups from the inner city. And the prosecutions were transparently pursued for purposes of voter suppression (i.e., an arguably criminal agenda).

The recent creation of a state nonpartisan task force charged with investigating voter fraud allegations (announced in mid-September) and chaired by Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm and Wisconsin Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen, co-chair of McCain’s campaign, does not assuage concerns that one political party, the GOP, dedicated to voter suppression as one tactic of its electoral strategy, will prove successful in disenfranchising 1,000s of Wisconsin voters.

Chisholm is an honest DA, but I do not understand why he is trucking with dishonest players investigating fictitious voting fraud when even U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic concluded that no widespread fraud existed in the 2004 election.

Van Hollen, Chisholm, and anyone claiming an interest in fair elections ought to be conducting an investigation into McCain's dirty-trick absentee ballot applications stunt.

The fact that even the Milwaukee police department (not known for it judicious investigative techniques as its unwise forays into federal election law and voter fraud show) has been discredited and knocked down so hard it ought never be able to stand does not inspire confidence in those simply wanting to cast a vote because the GOP has not renounced its commitment to keeping the wrong-voting people from casting their ballots.

To help fight voting suppression and its allies, the nonpartisan Election protection coalition (http://www.866ourvote.org/) is a great resource.

Readers are invited to post other resources in comments. The stakes are high.

The ACLU and NAACP hit the state voter fraud task force on Sept. 17.

ACLU, NAACP Object To Discriminatory Election Enforcement In Wisconsin (9/17/2008)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: liberty@aclu-wi.org

The ACLU of Wisconsin and Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP are deeply troubled by the apparent discriminatory focus of the "election fraud" task force set up by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.

The formation of a voter fraud task force only in Milwaukee County reinforces an unsubstantiated perception that City of Milwaukee residents are more prone to commit election fraud. And, regardless of intent, a racial subtext is barely below the surface, given the fact that Milwaukee is the only majority-minority city in the state.

The truth is that voting irregularities can and do happen throughout Wisconsin - but when they do not occur in Milwaukee, they are called "mistakes" and not "fraud." There was, for example, no law enforcement outcry when earlier this year we learned that hundreds of voters in Oconomowoc voted at the wrong polling place for years, in ways that likely influenced local election outcomes. There is no evidence that voting errors in Milwaukee are any more grounded in "fraud" than were the voting errors in Oconomowoc.

Nor does unlawful voting only occur in Milwaukee. To the contrary, the clear majority of allegations of vote fraud in 2006 occurred outside the city of Milwaukee, in dozens of communities around the state.

The ACLU and NAACP also question involvement by the Milwaukee Police Department in any election task force until such time as there is public disclosure of the role of officers in publishing a biased report earlier this year on the 2004 election making recommendations they had no authority to make, without the approval of their superiors.

The much ballyhooed, but practically non-existent, phenomenon of voter fraud does not warrant the development of a "task force" anywhere, but certainly not just in Milwaukee. Indeed, as law enforcement officials recognized this morning, the City Election Commission has made great strides in promoting fair and transparent elections, and the creation of a "fraud" task force only undermines faith in those elections. State and local officials should focus time and resources on facilitating election administration, not frustrating the rights of persons lawfully entitled to vote.

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