Fitchburg, Wisc Poll Worker Violates Voter Privacy with Letter, Following Voter Obstruction

Fitchburg Star column in November 2016 issue. Column is
written by Michael Leon, a writer and resident living in Fitchburg,
Wisconsin.

Anatomy of Harassment from Pernicious Poll Workers

Update: A reader asked, "What's Ron Johnson's deal?" Ron, The Racist, Johnson's deal is he is feigning a causal interest in this matter, after participating in a ridiculous voter-obstruction incident on Aug. 9. Ron left a message, (a comment), at this site in August, and is now following my work in different periodicals, leaving behind defamatory commentary. Ron really, really is interested in stopping voter fraud, so interested he lies about this voting-rights activist.
---
Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Ron Johnson is a veteran Fitchburg poll worker who has long-championed Wisconsin's obstructionist photo voter ID law intended to hinder the disfavored people from casting their preference at the voting booth.

Johnson has numerous like-minded colleagues on the Fitchburg election inspector roster.

Johnson, and three other white poll workers, personally obstructed this writer at the polling station on August 9, as chronicled in subsequent communications by me to the Dane County District Attorney's office and the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Unfortunately for me, Ron Johnson is an escalating racist as indicated in Johnson's official conduct as a Fitchburg poll worker. Johnson's status as a white and racist poll worker is not frowned upon by Fitchburg City Hall election officials, and complaints of harassment and discrimination are routinely ignored. I can verify these dynamics as a nine-year sworn Fitchburg election inspector.

Now, Johnson has taken to this site, and the Fitchburg Star, (Woodward Communications), to violate this voter's privacy at the polling place in defamatory editorial comment that chronicles this voter's personalized voting experience on August 9, violating my right to cast a ballot privately in Wisconsin, (Wisconsin Elections Commission).

Wisconsin election officials have a duty to administering elections in a fair, impartial manner that ensures voter privacy.

Ron Johnson didn't get that memo about voters' privacy.

In a letter to the Fitchburg Star, Johnson responds to this writer's column, (column reproduced above-right and below), challenging the racial animus in Fitchburg culture and Fitchburg City Hall. In my Star column I specifically cite the "sacrosanct nature of the booth" vis a vis incursions by Fitchburg election officials.

Putting aside the defamations and inaccuracies in Johnson's letter to the editor, Johnson offers his version of the voter-obstruction incident in a step-by-step chronicle that identifies me as a voter, describes my specific and personalized issues I experienced on Aug 9, and concludes with a chronicling of Johnson's attempt in August to comment at this site. (This site does not run defamations by racists in comments.)

To understand this appeal to privacy in this matter, consider scenarios when a voter enters a polling site and experiences an issue such a spoiled ballot, a 30-minte delay in voting, or the use of a disability apparatus. Now, consider Ron Johnson working a poll worker and publishing a personalized narrative of the voter's experience using this voter's name, replete with invective. This conduct violates privacy expectations, and is pernicious activity committed by a Fitchburg election official.

This conduct does, however, casts light on the state of mind and attitudes of some Fitchburg poll workers towards another poll worker and voter who writes disfavored political analyses and commentary in Newxtex, (now ACI Information Group), and client periodicals.

Am meeting with Fitchburg City Attorney next week, though I am pessimistic with respect to outcomes as racial animus appears to the official and unchallenged policy of Fitchburg City Hall.

Stay tuned.

Above is Fitchburg Star column in November 2016 issue. Column is
written by Michael Leon, a writer and resident living in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

I'm a Fitchburg, Wisconsin Election Inspector, Was Stopped from Voting for 35 Minutes and Harassed

Voter Obstruction and Harassment Has to Stop Now

Update II: White Fitchburg election inspector leaves comment at Mal Contends, corroborating in part allegations below. MC would publish comment, (it is saved), however it is this site's policy not to run the words of racists, as I hate those fuckers.
--
Updated - I have voted at Fitchburg Fire Station, Number 2, for some 15 years, working as a sworn election inspector, (contract employee), for some nine years.

This morning I walked-jogged to my polling place to vote.

I walked into the fire station, said 'hi' to the greeter, said hi to Hertis at the Ballots table, hi to Lynette Rasmusson, a retied teacher, friend and neighbor down our street, at the M-Z voting books.

I walk over to the A-L table to state my name and address, as I do in every election.

I gave the Republican Election Inspector on the A-L books my Wisconsin-issued voter-photo ID who proceeded to take about two minutes time, apparently pretending to inspect attributes.

'Get to work, boys. Leon, Michael, Monticello Way, 5767,' I said jokingly.

But something was up. I worked the voting rolls inspecting IDs in before, and it does not take this long to examine an ID.

Election inspectors typically are not adversarial and hostile except maybe to black folks, but I'm waiting for my voting number to get my ballot.

I take my ID and I place it back in my wallet.

'I need to see your ID again, I have to check, ahh, the expiration date," said the Republican.

—You just saw it and inspected my ID. You don't need to see it again, I say.

This guy is screwing with me, with my vote. I'm pissed.

'I need you to state your address, Mike,' using my name.

—You're screwing with me. I gave you my ID, and my address. You know fully well who I am. Where's my [voting] number. I'm voting today.

I can't believe this Republican is screwing with me, with my vote. He has my name and address, and after examining my ID, now he's preventing me from voting.

I'm going to settle this with the election authorities, I say. I'm being denied my right to vote, I said, glancing at Lynette Rasmusson at the M-Z table.

I call up the US Atty's office, the Wisconsin DoJ, the Fitchburg City Clerk, the Dane County DA and then the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC, formerly GAB).

Should have started with Elections Commission, but my guard is down, I was ambushed. Hey, I'm voting; it's social, civic and political.

So, after being on with the Elections Commission for several minutes, I gave her the name of Dale Z., the Republican Chief Election Inspector seated behind and to the right of the voting rolls.

I hold the phone in the air, and she hears the chatter from the A-L table. 'We need your name and address,' says the Republican.

Okay, they are screwing with me still, and I cannot believe it, but I'll try this again with the Elections Commission on. I give my name and address again. This time, the two Republicans and Ron Johnson, (also working the A-L table), all yell, cheer and say, about time.

The Elections Commission says, what was that? Those are the Republican election inspectors, I reply.

It sounded like a gasp, but I don't know.

I call a Fitchburg Alder, Tony Hartman, and the Fitchburg Star and a bunch of local politcos and elected officeholders.

This harassment and voter obstruction has to stop now.

Tony Hartman says he'll talk to Patty and Tracy at City Hall. I'm on with Mike Haas at the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and tell him in no uncertain words, this harassment has to stop.

I call City Hall, the election inspector dismisses my complaint out-of-hand with no investigation.

By not taking my complaint seriously, she was giving tacit approval to the violators and condoning their action.

City Hall doesn't like my writing, doesn't like my sticking up for voters. I'm still on with Haas.


Jackie, my life partner who is in ill health, calls from the living room and said, there is Fitchburg Police squadron stopping at our home, and two armed FPD officers walk up our drive-way and pound at the door.

Jackie is scared is her own home, and she cannot afford stress.

This is voting today, this has to stop. Right now.
--
Email to Fitchburg, Wisconsin Common Council members sent Aug. 9

This needs to stop right now.

I had multiple conversations with District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, the GAB's Mike Haas, and State Rep. Robb Kahl's office, among many other parties.

I related this morning's events about being obstructed to vote for 35 minutes, followed by two visits of Fitchburg

Police banging on our home, and upsetting Jackie to tears. Her health is not good, and she need a stress-free environment. I will file a civil rights complaint and a civil suit if personal injury results.

These events are chronicled here.

The voter obstruction and police harassment comes as a partisan tactical voter suppression campaign is clear, and secondly my status as an ethic minority is met with hostility by Republicans including but not limited to three Republican Fitchburg election inspectors and Tracy Oldenburg.

There will be an investigation conducted by the District Attorney's office as well as the Elections Commission, I have been assured.

Prior to these investigations, it is incumbent that we realize Tracy is not capable of addressing complaints, as evinced by her behavior in which she summarily dismissed my complaint with no investigation.

More insidious is the fact Republican election inspectors felt entitled and empowered to engage in this clearly hostile voter obstruction. Tracy Oldenburg is incapable of administering elections and an inquiry should be addressed with an eye towards removing her.

I would ask for a thorough consideration of the facts of harassment against my family and me, and voter obstruction conducted with the assent of Tracy Oldenburg.

Mike Leon

Fitchburg, Wisc Mayor's Remarkable Public Apology Rings Hollow

Wanda Smith is a popular community activist and child-care
activist against whom Fithcburg Ald Dorothy Krause began
a character assassination project, attempting to enlist
the Fitchburg City Manager, the Fitchburg City Attorney's
office, and the Fitchburg Police Department. A subsequently
contrite Fitchburg Mayor issued an apology to Ms. Smith on
behalf of the City of Fitchburg on Nov. 17, throwing
Ald Krause under the bus, and opening the City to a
possible federal civil rights action by Smith. Smith is speaking
at the apology press conference above.

Fitchburg—the city's name is an imprecation, a curse against democratic norms and generations-long commitment of the progressive state, Wisconsin

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—The bullshit piles up so high here, you need wings to stay above it.

The Fitchburg, Wisconsin mayor issued a well-conceived PR apology for cutting off a commenting citizen in mid-sentence and then instructing the Fitchburg City Administrator to phone the police about this disturbance at a budget hearing last week, (Wisconisn State Journal, Fitchburg Star).

This mayoral apology directed at multiple citizens—Kaleem Caire, Amelia Royko Maurer, Nate Royko Maurer, and Wanda Smith for First Amendment-protected speech—fell flat last Friday, (Nov. 17).

No citizen reached was surprised the Fitchburg police were contacted as a complaint against a citizen attending a Common Council meeting, ejecting citizens from a public meeting, that a Fitchburg alder would engage in a character assassination scheme against another citizen, or that Mayor Jason Gonzalez' effort at damage control would be so transparently disingenuous.

"There was some … improper exercise of discretion by myself when I interrupted two speakers. When I ran, I ran on a platform of inclusion and bringing our city together. It appears I’ve gone astray, and I apologize for that," said Gonzalez, (Fitchburg Star, City of Fitchburg). Gone astray?

Voter obstruction will continue in Fitchburg, and as most young and minority voters in alder district one know, the polling place here is hostile to their presence on Election Day.

This is Fitchburg, and the norms prevailing in other municipalities do not apply here where retaliations by elected and appointed Fitchburg officials against whistle-blowers, black people, and assorted progressives (they're a perceived problem), are routine.

Some take-aways from the last few weeks of life in Fitchburg, Wisconsin:

• Nicholas Garton deserves recognition for his investigative reporting at the journal, Madison.365.
• Fitchburg Alder Dorothy Krause has been thrown under the bus after the mayor issued his remarkable public apology on behalf of the entire City of Fitchburg specifically citing Krause's character assassination project against citizen Wanda Smith. Krause is now an alder without a district, and resides in political no-woman's land.
• Kaleem Caire, a commenting citizen at the budget hearing who was subjected to public abuse and an outrageous police call, has been revealed as an opportunistic pol who can be expected to use this outrage for his own political benefit, against the benefit of the community. Caire isn't fooling anyone and standing up for Caire is just, is the consensus among progressives here.
• The Recall-the-bums campaign is still on, and the mayor's public dumping of Krause and his apology change nothing.
• Former mayor Steve Arnold is a keeper of valuable voting lists. 
• City officials still feel entitled to treat the Fitchburg Police Department as a political hit-squad for corrupt purposes such as defaming citizens.
• Wanda Smith is a political force to be reckoned with.
• Wisconsin State Journal columnist, Chris Rickert, who penned a racist, black parents-should-feed-their-kids piece in his coverage of Fitchburg earlier this month, is now working at a new position to improve local coverage at the daily, what used to be the life-blood of newspapers.
• Fitchburg is racist to the bone, and any young and minority person locating here should be prepared to fight for your rights, perhaps more than folks have ever had to before.

Fitchburg, Wisc Police Harassment Escalates Against Poll Worker Who Blew Whistle on Voter Obstruction

Rushed piece follows no sleep by author, and inflicted trauma to household by 1:00 a.m., police intrusion

First-person report- updated

Fitchburg, Wisconsin — Somewhere deep in my life experience, I don't want to believe cops are lying, harassing pieces of human filth.

But I know better after living 53 years in Wisconsin.

Following the Aug. 9, 2016 civil citation given to Fitchburg, Wisconsin polling worker who blew the whistle on voter obstruction, police have harassed a home in a quiet, suburban neighborhood.

From an email sent this morning to Fitchburg, Wisconsin officials documenting what is one sense light harassment, but is in our home intimate betrayal and police misconduct, (see Mal Contends and Mal Contends).

James,

Would you forward to the judge? I want this documented in real time.

Judge H.E., please preserve this email as a record.

Tom Clauder, you have the most-heavy police background, read on and tell me this is acceptable behavior by police. Tell me this is the way it was in my Cap Times days when I covered Fitchburg.

This morning at approximately 1:00 a.m. Jackie and I were awakened to the Fitchburg police harassing our home. That's one in the morning, people, and I have not been back to sleep since. Jackie caught some two hours. We're clearing out calendars as we can, we do need to sleep.

This is the second time Fitchburg police have harassed our home is the last two months, both on laughably ridiculous pretexts.

Both times Jackie has been driven to tears. I can tell you that this is a less-than-gratifying experience. This harassment follows the Aug 9, 2016 harassment and the polls and our home.

The perp is Fitchburg police, and on both occasions cops shined powerful, (spotlight-intense), lights into our home after creeping around the outside of our home (in our quiet, peaceful neighborhood save the harassment by cops) and then lying to our face about what they were doing.

This is effectively terrorizing us in our home. I have alerted a civil liberties atty who asked to be kept posted after the last time this occurred earlier this year, calling him/her at 2:00 in the morning, for Christ's sake.

The pretext, the lie told to us after confronted the cops by phone, is about as credible as the Sgt with whom we spoke by phone at 1:30 this morning. Whatever you may believe about the character and nature of Fitchburg police, know these are not honorable individuals. Read on.

Two months ago, it was a car accident in the area that the cops said was "traced" to our address, which is easily disconfirmed, but resulted in no apologies to us. Moreover, when I walked outside to confront the two cops digging in the snow behind our bushes, I told them they looked "busy" but would like to know what is going on. I believe in retrospect the cops were planting evidence of footprints in the fresh snow for another purpose. This is felony misconduct, people.

This morning the Fitchburg Police Department said there was a 911 call "traced" to this address. On both occasions Jackie and I were dead-asleep, which is to say the cops lied, and their supervisors covered for them instead of investigating this harassment. "Traced," now, that is one bullshit word.

This kind of story is not one which is in the public sphere of consensus attitudes towards police, (but we are learning about the motivations and actions of these people).

This is a ridiculous situation, and the cops know this to be ridiculous but who will say anything? Writers, civil liberties activists, (and lawyers) that's who. I will say something, and will not stop until we are granted some measure of legal relief.

Therein is the motivation behind cops acting like thugs and prowlers in the night. Retaliation against me for what I write, and the civil liberties violations against others on which I have reported while working as a Fitchburg poll worker, (2007-2016).

I am taking legal measures of course, bringing these matters to the attention of newly elected city officials is one among many measures, but should I have to?

Neither Jackie nor I are is prepared or schooled on how to handle being harassed by cops.

With the approaching warm months, the only real concern we have Re safety, health and security is police harassment and being awakened at 1:00 in the morning, accomplished with bad intentions to inflict injury onto our household.

In any event this harassment, twice in two months, precedes my trial against the bogus civil citation. That trial is May 10, 5:00 p.m. I urge you to attend. My provisional conclusion is hostile cops wish to intimidate me and traumatize my disabled life partner so we will forgo our defense.

On the memory of my mother, I intend to litigate this citation and the harassment Jackie and I have endured. I will litigate first in muny court, then county district court, then federal dist court, and will be filling every complaint and making use of every civil defense against this apparent harassment project dating back to at least Aug 9. 2016.

Believe it. Oh, and pls consider acting.

A call to Fitchburg PD expressing concern would be a start, asking, for example, just what the hell do these people think they are doing?

Out in the Cold—Fitchburg Kicks Black Children out of Shelter, Wisconsin Winter Looms

Beautiful children in Fitchburg Wisconsin
are relegated to picnic tables by City officials.
Those who dare care for minority children
are targeted by the Fitchburg Common Council
and white City Hall bureaucrats.

Fuck you, Fitchburg—An editorial

Update: Group is now meeting at an area church, Facebook reports. Good hope; one feels confident cops will not invade, harass, fine or kill there.
--
Fitchburg, Wisconsin—Fitchburg is a suburb just south of Madison run by white people, for white people, wrestling with the Black Problem.

It's August 2014 and a Fitchburg cop pulls outside of the polling place in district one with red and white lights flashing, creating a barrier between the polling place and King James Way, the black sector of the Jamestown neighborhood named after a 17th century Virginia slave colony.

I'm working as a poll worker and I point out the cop car outside the polling place: "Good," says the new chief election inspector, a white racist named Dale Zahorik.

Zahorik hates black people. Do you think communities of interest who don't trust cops should have to encounter a cop car with lights flashing as a condition of voting? I ask.

Zahorik evades the question, and I call up the City Clerk's office, and its reaction, from one Patti Anderson, vacillates between feigned indifference and hostility toward me challenging why I am questioning the presence of the cop.

The cop is but one example of white hostility towards black folks here. There's Zahorik's refusing to put out a polling place sign out on Election Day, April 2016, short-staffing the ballots table, open antagonism towards black voters, intimidation, stuffing the roster of polling workers with white racists, Ron Johnson and Pat McCutcheon for example, several instances of voter obstruction I have witnessed, challenged and documented between 2007 and 2016, most recently in a related civil case in Fitchburg Municipal Court where I testified under oath a detailed chronicling of the placing of the White Power Caucus in Fitchburg aldermanic district one polling place.

Zahorik and the City Clerk's attitude exemplify the white consensus towards black residents from City Hall. Blacks are not wanted here and they should leave.

Sometimes though, pictures tell a clearer story.

Wanda Smith runs an informal, after-school club to help out children with homework, structure, comfort, encouragement, a little something to eat, and a general peace-and-love gathering to help children not-quite-yet-traumatized by living in Fitchburg.

Fitchburg knows how to handle Wanda Smith.

For working with minority children, Smith has been unremittingly harassed by City Hall and the Common Council. In a piece that is shaking the conscience of Dane County Wisconsin, Nicholas Garton reports, "Fitchburg alder Dorothy Krause wanted to use police records and licensing requirements to shut down the after-school homework club run by longtime community volunteer Wanda Smith, who she considers 'not someone who should be in charge of groups of children,' according to emails obtained by Madison365."

This is pure character assassination and harassment of a peace-loving citizen.

There's a small, unoccupied park shelter off King James Way in Fitchburg in the black sector. Smith meets with the children near there.

Writes Amelia Royko Maurer in Facebook last night:

Wanda Smith has to conduct her after school program outside if they want to be near their homes, which they do because it builds a sense of place and community and saves on transportation costs. The city of Fitchburg won’t let them use the unoccupied park shelter without paying an unaffordable amount. [Alders] Dorothy Krause, Jason Gonzalez, Tony Hartmann, [and former Mayor] Shawn Pfaff, if you’re looking for criminal behavior, look no further than yourself and colleagues. This is unconscionable and your collective regrets and care are proven hollow by your willingness to let this continue.

Soon, the kids are going to get cold. But besides the weather, they have to cope with Fitchburg City Hall and the Fitchburg cops who relegate the kids to a picnic table.

Below are recent shots of these human children.

Fuck you, Fitchburg.

To Wanda Smith and those children blessed by her love, this is for you:

"Thousands of unknown men and women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many died, but all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of their countries. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
Robert F. Kennedy
University of Cape Town, South Africa
"Day of Affirmation" Speech June 6th, 1966 

ACI Info Group Writer Remains Target of Fitchburg, Wisc Republicans

Update: State and municipal corruption now have a free hand in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Ethics Commission, a titular election watchdog, member, Robert Kinney has resigned in disgust.

Reports Jason Stein: "Kinney said that in a private session the commission has already declined to take action on a complaint that he believed merited it."

"If financial or ethical improprieties are leveled, or allegations of quid pro quo corruption are made, they must be thoroughly and timely investigated, and, if warranted, aggressively prosecuted. Sadly, it appears we have created a system which almost guarantees that this will not occur," Kinney said in a statement Monday (Stein, MJS), (Capitol Newspapers).
 ---
Nearing the age of Donald Trump, some local Wisconsin municipalities cannot wait to get started.

Following is a first-person saga chronicling a small Wisconsin city targeting a nine-year veteran poll worker, writer, PR Specialist and voting rights activist.

Harassed as a poll worker, several Fitchburg, Wisconsin Republicans, fundamentalist Christians, and white racists decided to obstruct and harass this now-former poll worker, me, at the polling place in the Fall Primary election, now held in August.

The crusade continues as a Fitchburg poll worker is now violating Wisconsin's voter-privacy guarantees in his bizarre pursuit of this voter.

Silence emits from City Hall officials who have failed to respond to numerous requests for investigation and comment.

Fitchburg Election Inspector Ron Johnson has now taken his crusade against me from the polling place to content at my ICI Info Group site, Mal Contends, to now the Fitchburg Star, (Woodward Communications).

State law and ethics prevents official such as poll workers from acting officially in a matter in which s/he is privately interested.

From an email sent this morning to Fitchburg City Clerk and asst City Clerk:

... It would appear that Ron Johnson feels secure in his reading of Wisconsin election law that he as an election inspector is relieved of his duties to help administer impartial elections free of hostile and discriminatory conduct, and an election inspector's duty to protect the privacy of voter, (in this instance, me).

Ron Johnson's defamatory editorial comment in the Star chronicles this voter's personalized voting experience on August 9. Ron Johnson violates my right to cast a ballot privately in Wisconsin, (Wisconsin Elections Commission).

Putting aside the defamations and inaccuracies in Ron Johnson's letter to the editor Ron Johnson offers his version of the voter-obstruction incident in a step-by-step chronicle that identifies me as a voter, describes my specific and personalized issues I experienced on Aug 9, and concludes with a chronicling of Johnson's attempt in August to comment at this site.

To understand this appeal to my privacy in this matter, consider scenarios when a voter enters a polling site and experiences an issue such a spoiled ballot, a 30-minte delay in voting, or the use of a disability apparatus. Now, consider Ron Johnson working a poll worker and publishing a personalized narrative of the voters' experience using this voter's name, replete with invective in these instances. This conduct violates privacy expectations, and is pernicious activity committed by a Fitchburg election official.

This conduct does as well casts light on the state of mind and attitudes of some Fitchburg election inspectors towards another former election inspector and voter who writes disfavored political analyses and commentary syndicated through Newxtex, (now ACI Information Group), and client periodicals.

I suggest you contact the City Atty's office, (Cced), as well consider SCR 946.12(3), Misconduct in public office.

With respect to election inspector Ron Johnson's conduct in the attached letter, I expect a reply detailing the scope of your investigation, the protocols of this investigation, and the resolution of Ron Johnson's conduct, including specifically whether Ron Johnson will not be on the roster of election inspectors working in 2017.

Frankly, I want a resolution of these matters, though some in City Hall and those retained as election inspectors have quite different aspirations.

I have copied some text Re SCR 946.12(3)

946.12 Misconduct in public office.

(1) Intentionally fails or refuses to perform a known mandatory, nondiscretionary, ministerial duty of the officer's or employee's office or employment within the time or in the manner required by law; or

(2) In the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee, does an act which the officer or employee knows is in excess of the officer's or employee's lawful authority or which the officer or employee knows the officer or employee is forbidden by law to do in the officer's or employee's official capacity; or

(3) Whether by act of commission or omission, in the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee exercises a discretionary power in a manner inconsistent with the duties of the officer's or employee's office or employment or the rights of others and with intent to obtain a dishonest advantage for the officer or employee or another; or

(4) In the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee, makes an entry in an account or record book or return, certificate, report or statement which in a material respect the officer or employee intentionally falsifies; or

(5) Under color of the officer's or employee's office or employment, intentionally solicits or accepts for the performance of any service or duty anything of value which the officer or employee knows is greater or less than is fixed by law.

I would note as well that Johnson's continuing conduct buttresses contemplation of investigation of abuse-of-process questions.


Mike Leon

#

Independence Day Means Resist, Vote and Fight

Emboldened American racists feel free to act out and display
antipathy towards those with dark complexions. The crowd
at the Make America Great Again rally in Minnesota on
June 22, 2018 joined the president in jeering and outrage.
Photo by Tom Brenner, the New York Times

Madison, Wisconsin — A University of Wisconsin at Madison press release reminds the community that residents can vote absentee now in the coming Aug. 14 state and congressional primary elections.

Gov Scott Walker (R) and legislative Republicans (and only Republicans) passed dozens of voter obstruction laws making voting and registering more difficult.

Communities like UW-Madison are fighting back by helping voters cast ballots.

Wisconsin Republicans realize their only chance of hanging onto to power is to obstruct voters who are likely to vote against Republicans. Voter obstruction is a brazen, partisan project, and like Walker' effort to block elections and close early-voting sites reveals a hostility to democracy and liberty, the foundation of our society.

The sight of black voters casting their Article III right to vote under the Wisconsin Constitution is appalling to Republican white supremacists who dominate the Party. I witness this hostility every Election Day.

Republicans see young, black and brown folks canceling proper, informed white votes as illegitimate. White supremacists on Madison's southwest side and in the city of Fitchburg's City Hall, for example, have worked as enthusiastic partners in the Republican voter-obstruction project.

The Republican strategic war against voting in 2015 (Wisconsin Act 261) outlawed most municipal Special Registration Deputies, (except for care homes), who formerly could resister voters and verify residency and voter identity.

At the annual Wisconsin Republican convention this Spring, Republicans vowed to stop same-day voter registration and out-of-state college voters because of the anti-Republican bent of these two demographics.

The July 3 UW-Madison news release is reproduced below. The release offers a step-by-step guide to absentee voting.
---
You can vote now in the August primary election

It’s not too early to vote in the Aug. 14 primary election.

Offices on the ballot are governor, U.S. senator, U.S. representative, odd-numbered Wisconsin State Senate seats, and all Wisconsin Assembly seats.

You can request an absentee ballot now using your spring 2018 Madison address, so even if you’re away for the summer (or don’t want to go to the polls), you can still be a Madison voter (If you have graduated and have no plan to return to Madison, you should re-register wherever you are moving).

What to do:

• Snap your ID: Take a picture of your voter ID (Wisconsin driver’s license, passport, or student voter ID). If you’re using the student voter ID, visit go.wisc.edu/verify and take a screenshot of your enrollment verification.
• Email your request: Send the pictures to voting@cityofmadison.com. Use the subject line “August Absentee” and include your name, your current Madison address, and “send me a ballot.”
• Be sure to say if you’re already registered to vote; if not, you can send the registration form in now, too.
• Finally, give the mailing address or email where you are now. If the delivery address or method changes, just email voting@cityofmadison.com
• Questions? Email voting@cityofmadison.com

Want to vote in person? Already you can vote in-person absentee at the city clerk’s office, 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Room 103, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday until Aug. 10.

Most other in-person absentee voting sites don’t open until late July or early August, including three on campus.
#

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—Creating a Slush Fund in the Scott Walker Era

Fitchburg, Wisconsin is a freak show.

Corruption in Plain Sight in the Rats' Nest of Dane County Wisconsin

Fitchburg, Wisconsin—This isn't about the money; it's about making a "better way" to fund community non-profits, said Fitchburg ald. Tony Hartmann in an October email to Mal Contends.

It is about the money.

What Hartmann calls media "misinformation" about a proposed Common Council scheme to fund nonprofit groups draws laughter, anger and the start of a recall-the-Mayor initiative in this politically progressive community with the Republican-dominated City Hall, police department and elected municipal government.

With growing minority and young populations here, Fitchburg civil and elected officials have accelerated a Republican program to consolidate political power as this city becomes a flashpoint as Gov. Scott Walker kicks in 2018 reelection mode.

In Fitchburg, Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker has been defeated at
the ballot box. Above are the results for Fitchburg in the 2014
general election. First column is the total votes, second column is
Dem. nominee Mary Burke's votes, and third column is Walker's.

Gov. Scott Walker, (R), made numerous public visits to Fitchburg since becoming governor in 2011. At the ballot box, though, Walker was clobbered here in the 2014 general and 2012 recall elections. In ald dist one, (one of four voting districts composed of 19 wards), Mary Burke defeated Scott Walker with 1,528 votes for Burke and 410 votes for Walker out of 1,966 votes cast for a 77 percent to 20 percent defeat of Walker in the 2014 general election. Since 2014, incidents of voter obstruction and harassment of voters by white poll workers and white Fitchburg City Clerk staff, Patti Anderson and Tracy Oldenburg, have increased in wards one-four, district one, as has been documented and stated publicly at municipal civic trials by former Fitchburg poll worker, ((2007-2016), Mal Contends).

On the Fitchburg Common Council, Hartmann, Ald Julia Arata-Fratta and Mayor Jason Gonzalez, (after amassing a wide coalition in his 2016-17 campaign), have thrown in with Republicans on the eight-member Council, and are eyeing money in the city's Community Development Grant Program, (CEDA), to be used as a slush fund [information describing the city's CEDA including how to apply, was posted on the city website Aug. 18, 2017 some five weeks before Mayor Jason Gonzales posted his proposed 2018 budget calling for the "removal" of $110,000 in non-profit funding, (The Capital Times)].

We want that money

"Fitchburg Alds. Julia Arata Fratta, Dan Carpenter and Dorothy Krause are sponsoring an amendment to the proposed 2017 budget that would remove club funding from the city budget and put it under the control of the Community Economic Development Authority, whose eight members would decide how to allocate it," notes The Capital Times in 2016.

Many Fitchburg residents are watching whether Arata Fratta-linked non-profits have become new applicants for the slush fund, if the budget proposal gets passed.
---
Meanwhile recall alders and mayor efforts continue as political observes gaming out scenarios fish around for mayoral candidates in a possible 2018 recall election, including perennial mayoral candidate Jay Allen, a supporter of several Republican Party congressional nominees, including John Sharpless, Dave Magnum and the far-right fringe candidate, Ron Greer. 

Photo Voter ID for the Wisconsin November Election—A Voter System Usability Test

Updated - February 21, 2012 is the only day in Wisconsin history when a new statutory condition—a new qualification—had to be satisfied to cast a vote without an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution.

This statutory condition, a new qualification, is likely one of the grounds on which the Wisconsin Supreme Court will strike down Wisconsin's photo voter ID law, Act 23, as unconstitutional.

Scott Walker knew he and the Republican Party legislators enacted an unconstitutional law that stopped qualified, registered Wisconsin voters from voting.

Scott Walker knows in a heavy voter turn-out election, Act 23 (had it not been enjoined by state courts, and likely a federal judge as well) would obstruct and suppress potentially 100,000s of voters.

This knowledge does not weigh on Walker because stopping Wisconsin voters from voting is precisely the point of Act 23, and the GOP's other voter obstruction laws passed since they took control of the legislature and executive branch.

Put aside. for the moment, the facts demonstrated in federal and state court that blacks, Latinos, the elderly, homeless, homeless veterans, and college students for example would face barriers and burdens imposed by the Republican Party's Act 23.

The February 21, 2012 Spring Primary Election Day—when no statewide races were on the ballots and turn-out was in the single digits—provided a usability test for photo voter ID.

I worked as an election inspector on the voter rolls books on February 21, 2012, at Fire Station #2 (Fitchburg, Wisconsin (Wards 1-4; District one)).

I can tell you that the time imposed on the system, assuming Act 23 or a new photo voter ID act is in effect, would on the November 2014 General Election Day cause huge lines, massive delays, and sow confusion at the polling place: All GOP objectives.

Assume a photo voter ID law is in place in November 2014, as Walker says he'll attempt to enact after the expected judicial knockdown of Act 23, in this heavy turn-out election the waiting times would become unbearable to many.

In this scenario, Wisconsin GAB regulations [which would be slightly revised for a new law] would require each voter at the polls to state his name and address, sign his or her name on the voting rolls, and present a GOP-approved photo voter ID to poll worker (election inspector).

The poll worker in turn would examine the ID against the restrictive list of acceptable IDs; check the name on the ID against the voting roll; examine the photo for resemblance to the voter; and then physically hand the ID to the second poll worker who repeats the process.

The variables of the extra time for the single voter may not seem like much, but this variable (the time increases) are multiplied the longer the line and the higher the turn-out on Election Day.

Throw in time increase factors built into the Wisconsin voting system by Republicans since 2011 such as eliminating weekend early voting, multiple shortening of early-voting periods, new residency rules, elimination of third-person attesting to residency, and so on and the result is less Wisconsin people will have voted.

This is the Republican objective.

In June 2012, many polling places experienced near-presidential level turn-out on the Recall General Election day. Had the photo voter ID rules been in effect, the long lines, and over-an-hour waits for voters registering at the polls on Election Day that already existed that day would have been catastrophically increased, assuming the objective of constitutionally qualified voters casting their preference on Election Day.

Wisconsin High Court's Ruling on Voter ID Cases Will Be Historic

Update: Supreme Court refuses to take up voter ID cases (April 16, 2012)

Soon, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear one or more voter ID cases that have halted implementation of the GOP voter obstruction project.

The resulting high court decision this Spring or Summer will be a historic moment in Wisconsin.

This one decision will determine if Wisconsin is a lawless, unconstitutional state; or a democracy where the rule of law and the rights of citizens guaranteed in the Wisconsin Constitution hold sway over nihilistic politics.

For the State of Wisconsin well protects the right of citizens to vote in the Wisconsin Constitution (Article III) against any legislative or executive fiat that would "cancel or substantially burden a constitutionally guaranteed sacred right," as Judge Richard Niess writes in his March 12, 2012 decision.

No political party or movement can declare the sacred rights of classes of Wisconsin citizens to cease to exist while this party remains in power and acts in its perceived self interest. Judicial case law dating back over a century recognizes the primacy of voting rights in Wisconsin. These points are not controversial.

Voting in the young republic -
George Caleb Bingham

Looked at from the perspective on the ground: No constitutionally qualified, duly registered voter can walk over to the voting rolls table to obtain a ballot for casting his or her vote and then be told he or she is no longer qualified to vote.

The law is as clear as the stakes are high.

A government that undermines the right to vote imperils its own legitimacy as a government 'by the people, for the people and especially of the people,' (Judge) Niess wrote. 'It sows the seeds for its own demise as a democratic institution' (Treleven, WSJ).

Undermining the right to vote would, one might believe, provoke outrage at the responsible political party—the Republican Party.

But as the Republican Party commissars are well aware, their efforts are aimed at a minority of Wisconsin citizens; and the GOP will side-step discussion of killing constitutional rights with comparisons of voting to renting a video and then call this coordinated, nationwide GOP voter suppression effort 'common sense.'

Most citizens will blithely go about their business, thinking, 'I have my license, why don't they have their's,' an undemocratic notion devoid of appreciation for the constitutional rights of all citizens.

This is Republican politics at its worst, preying on apathy and the ignorance of rights that—if we are honest—we note define the American populace in our depoliticized, anti-democratic political culture.

Most journalists will also neglect the legal Wisconsin tradition of the right to vote, though a simple phone call to any credible political scientist or law professor will reveal facts not to this moment widely reported. Wisconsin scholars are quite willing to talk; it's a Wisconsin Idea thing. [Truthfully, I'm surprised a petition blasting the Voter ID law has not made the rounds.]

One attorney this morning, said, "I don't think they [the four Republican justices] will vote to uphold the [voter ID] law. It would be too blatant a partisan display," speaking on background.

I work as an sworn election inspector for the City of Fitchburg and I have seen up close and personal the popular hostility to voting rights that exists even in my liberal, highly educated community. Stick a given person behind a voter registration table, give this person a little authority, and the resulting behavior might shock even social psychologists studying the capacity of citizens to deny the rights of their fellow citizens living in the same community. It's difficult for me, again in a personal digression, to see this behavior with anything less than disgust.

This is the political culture we live in.

The only mechanism protecting our rights is the rule of law and those citizens willing to uphold it.

If the four Republican Supreme Court justices decide to act as an underground political movement and vote to deny the rights of Wisconsin citizens, we will have reached a point of crisis in Wisconsin.

Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson will have no choice but to alert the citizenry that the rule of law no longer exists in Wisconsin, destroyed by the Republican Party, the institution of the Supreme Court already damned. Anything less than naming the perpetrators is acquiescence. One certainly could argue we have already reached this point.

Intellectual honesty and democratic values can still save the right to vote in Wisconsin; but this will require good-faith actors in journalism, the academy, the Republican Party, business and the Wisconsin citizenry to refuse to be silent anymore.

"The only cure for [political neurosis and fear] is a steady and unfrightened public opinion strong enough and expressive enough to show that respect for civil rights is also good politics in America," said Robert H. Jackson in 1939.

Wisconsin Voter ID Status Unclear as Frank Easterbrook Takes Refuge in Fact-free Cocoon

Judge Lynn Adelman's injunction against the Republican-enacted photo-voter ID law has been stayed, or halted by three Republican-appointed appellate judges in the voting rights case, Frank v. Walker.

Judge Frank Easterbrook's order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reads in part, "Because the district court has not attempted to distinguish genuine difficulties of  the kind our opinion mentioned, 819  F.3d  at  385–86, or any other variety of substantial  obstacle to voting, from any given voter’s  unwillingness to make the effort that the Supreme Court has held that a state can require, there is  a substantial likelihood that the injunction will be reversed on appeal," (Wisconsin DoJ document).

With Judge James Peterson's injunction in One Wisconsin Institute, inc v. Thomsen, against a wide range of Republican obstruction laws, including voter ID, still in place, the question is, will voter ID be in place for the presidential election in November?

Writes Peterson, "I conclude that the IDPP, [ID Petition Process], is unconstitutional and needs to be reformed or replaced. Because time is short with the fall elections approaching, I will issue an injunction targeted to the constitutional deficiencies that I identify."

Even election law experts can only offer speculation on what happens next.

Leading Wisconsin writers on the voting rights battle, Jason Stein and Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, can only find sources to offer this in their coverage: "Voters should keep following the news — the rules could change again between now and the Nov. 8 presidential election."

What is clear is that the Republican Party of Wisconsin and voting rights activists are at cross purposes.

The most likely next legal moves include the State of Wisconsin enacting last-minute administrative rules changing the ID Petition Process, (IDPP), to make the rules acceptable to Judge Peterson to save the voter ID legal regime in One Wisconsin, and an emergency appeal to the full court of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit by voting rights attorneys in Frank v. Walker.

From the Washington Post, (Zapotosky):

Dale Ho, director of the Voting Rights Project for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that as many as 300,000 registered voters in Wisconsin lack the right photo ID, although he acknowledged that not all of those people would vote and some probably could obtain documentation without much trouble. The ACLU had sued over the law.

As to whether requiring ID could tip the election in favor of the Republicans who support the law, Ho said: 'Obviously, the people behind these laws think it can help them. Whether or not it can, from our perspective, it really doesn’t matter. We’re just trying to make sure everyone can vote.'

As noted here, on September 22, 47 days from Election Day on November 8, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), will begin mailing absentee ballots to local election clerks who in turn mail ballots to several classes of voters, per Wisconsin Statute, including permanent absentee voters, (Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC)).

Wisconsin voters should receive absentee ballots around September 29.

It is a judicial doctrine, the Purcell Principle, that federal courts will not change election laws after the voting process has begun. So, the clock is ticking.

Still, the Republican voter obstruction project is continuing in other ways:

During Election Day yesterday, Republican election inspectors, began a tactical voter suppression action that resulted in this voter being denied my right to vote for 35 minutes. This voter suppression action apparently includes use of outright hostility, mocking, and prevention of voting by Republican election inspectors who are now individually named by the Republican Party of Wisconsin.

Similar reports, including one incident involving the mother of a Fitchburg, Wisconsin alder, were fielded by elected office holders who say the tactical suppression program may spell trouble for voters on November 8, Election Day.

The obstruction incident at Fitchburg Fire Station, Number 2 yesterday, will be investigated by the Dane County District Attorney's office and the Wisconsin Elections Commission, upon receipt of complaints and relevant reports, top officials of the two agencies said yesterday after being reached by phone.

Trump Escalates Republican War Against Voting in Cuckoo Recount Effort

Jacob Lawrence - from the Migration Series (1940–41)

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — In modern America, the Republican Party's war against voters is waged as a full-spectrum assault against liberty, accelerating in the last ten years.

Destroying black and brown lives, stripping human beings of dignity and liberty, have long been sport for white folks here. But Republicans have escalated  systemic destruction of the foundational right to cast votes (see Article III, Wisconsin Constitution; Ballotpedia).

Trump's new effort to ultimately convince courts to declare that 100,000s of voters' ballots are illegal is the latest of this anti-human project.

Trump's campaign gives County Canvassing Boards names of disfavored voters and says, throw out these ballots.

Extreme action for certain, but business as usual in a broader sense.

I worked as a Wisconsin election inspector (poll worker), for some 60 shifts between 1998 and 2016.

It used to be funny — because it was pathetic — to witness the sudden chill in the room, uncomfortable shifting in chairs, worried expressions of white poll workers morphing into grimaces bordering on disbelief as young black men entered the polling place in the morning shift at the old Fire Station Number Two in Fitchburg, Wisconsin (Alder Dist One).

Well, who can blame the white folks? 

You should have seen the voters' black hair, dark-brown skin, often adorned in golden jewelry and tight dark tee-shirts of I don't know what. You know what they do, who they are. 

And our white votes get cancelled out by these guys?

It's the way it is.

White poll workers and the Fitchburg City Clerk's office were not amused by black folks. In fact, they were hostile to anyone who reported Fitchburg racism. I know. [By the way, anecdotal reports from the 2020 presidential general elections indicate the voting experience is getting better now.]

This is Wisconsin, so it may surprise readers what one becomes inured to, but from a first-person stand-point, I can say I tried to alert the political world about Fitchburg. See also Kaleem Caire, president and CEO of One City Learning Centers, and his experience with Fitchburg.

Nothing surprises me here.

Trump's latest absurd forays into obliterating swaths of voters can be seen as a continuation of white efforts to troll black and brown folks, ongoing Republican work to transform election law to stop non-Republican voters and a heightened operation against entire jurisdictions such as Dane County and Milwaukee County. (See Beck, Glauber and Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Nichols, The Capital Times).

In 2016, in the voting rights litigation, One Wis­con­sin Insti­tute v. Thom­sen, much Repub­li­can vot­er-obstruc­tion leg­is­la­tion was swept away, opening up metro voting districts to help voters vote and have those votes count.

Of course the Republican legal empire struck back.

In June 2020, Judge Frank Easterbrook, from the Seventh Circuit, using his propensity to play loose with facts, penned Luft v Evers; One Wisconsin Institute, Inc. v Jacobs, (Nos. 16-3003, 16-3052), (Marley, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

Easterbrook reinstated most of the Republican-enacted restrictions on early voting.

Easterbrook sees no racism in Republicans' Wisconsin election law, as long the Republican Party's animus toward minorities includes an animus toward Democrats. A bizarre judicial doctrine.

Crazy is the order of the day.

You hear about the Trump campaign attorney heading up the stop-the-ballots effort here? 

Trump's lead attorney, Jim Troupis, and his wife's votes would be invalidated, were Trump to prevail in his current recount-and-stop ballots efforts in Wisconsin (see Beck, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and Law and Crime). 

This is because Trump wants early voting, (in-person, absentee), votes invalidated in Dane and Milwaukee counties. 

One can think of a few Due Process and Equal Protection problems with Trump's sought-after remedy for an imagined injury at the hands of Dane and Milwaukee counties.

Bear in mind, limiting early voting and racial intent and effect in Republican efforts to halt voting in jurisdictions where black and brown people live is fine, [no Constitutional problems], with Easterbrook.

But even Easterbrook, were this case to reach the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, would recoil.

It's crazy time in Wisconsin, but crazy is pretty much standard-going the last ten years, and is consistent with Wisconsin's secular religion: Most white folks really don't like black and brown people very much.

Republican Voter Obstruction Clocked on Election Day in Wisconsin

Today is Election Day in Wisconsin.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell and Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl are working with the UW-Madison Political Science Department (Kenneth Mayer) to quantify the effect on voters of the Republican voter obstruction project, specifically the mandated and narrow range of photo voter IDs as a new precondition to vote, (Neumann, WKOW-TV) (Novak, Wisconsin State Journal).

Today, Madison, Wisconsin poll workers (election inspectors) will time how long the voter ID requirement takes voters to satisfy, for the purpose of plugging the numbers into existing models at MIT using Queuing Theory to predict and quantify how congested polling places obstruct and delay voters.

Obstructing, delaying and frustrating voters remains a Republican Party political objective.

"There a coupe of different benefits for this initiative. It lets you the voter know how long the voter will have to wait, and voters can adjust their schedules. Secondly, it allows voting officials to make adjustments in administering polling places to help the voter," said Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell.

The Republican project of keeping away voters held in disfavor by the Republican Party comes as 300,000 Wisconsin voters are estimated to lack the necessary ID to vote.

Republicans (and only Republicans) mandated the photo voter ID requirement in 2011. Today's will be the first election in which a statewide race will be on the ballot mandating the Republican-demanded voter ID. Turnout is expected to be below 10 percent for this low turn-out state primary.

Veterans

After preventing veterans from using their Veterans Health Identification Cards (VIC) to satisfy the  photo voter ID condition, (Mal Contends Sept. 2011; Mal Contends Nov. 2103; Mal Contends July 2012), Republicans are expected to expand the list of acceptable voter IDs to include VICs which are issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, sources at the capitol say, likely in SB 295 as an amendment.

Stopping veterans from voting is not politically wise in a presidential election year.

Time

Today at a Fitchburg, Wisconsin polling station, the extra time at this low-turnout election for this voter as the sole voter at the polling place is some 34 seconds, a time that would be compounded substantially in a busy election day such as April 5 (Wisconsin presidential primary day) and November 8.

Congested election days have been engineered by Wisconsin Republicans since 2011 through a host of election changes designed both to stop people from voting and making it more difficult to vote.

Republican Voter Suppression in Wisconsin Hits Voter Turnout

Madison, Wisconsin — From Republican poll workers, hostile municipal clerks to the Republicans' transformation of "Wisconsin election law," (One Wisconsin Now. v. Thomsen, (p.2)), Republicans worked every angle to obstruct voters and suppress voter turnout.

The years-long voter suppression project continues.

The results are impressive.

Wisconsin traditionally has the highest or near the highest voter turnout.

From Matthew DeFour in the Wisconsin State Journal, (Madison):

Wisconsin’s voter turnout in the November presidential ... declined the second-most from 2012, according to a new report by Nonprofit VOTE and the U.S. Elections Project. 

The ongoing effort by Republicans at the local polling place targets minority and young voters systemically, to be treated with disrespect and hostility. [This Latino writer, working as a poll worker in 2016, pointed out the voter obstruction effort repeatedly since 2011. The response is hostile city of Fitchburg, Wisconsin officials called the police after an August 2016 phone call and contrived a bogus disorderly conduct citation now being adjudicated in municipal court. Resolution is expected in May.]

As a 10-year-plus election inspector, I can tell you this anti-democratic dynamic is widespread and growing.

The anti-democratic phenomenon is the result of the Republican Party changing election laws to usurp control of the voting place, but is difficult to measure in social scientific research such as Nonprofit VOTE and the U.S. Elections Project's.

Most people are not aware there are phone numbers and election officials whom one can contact after witnessing or experiencing voter obstruction.

Illumination of this misconduct depends on poll workers and voters recognizing a hostile polling place is illegal and then speaking up. If you speak up, in accordance with the Wisconsin Elections Commission's advice, you run the risk of a bogus disorderly conduct citation.

This is voting in Wisconsin today.