The problem we have here is that we passed a really solid voter ID law last year. A liberal judge in Madison struck it down and the lib judges have it bottled up in the appeals court. Our one vote conservative majority supreme court has refused to take up the case until the appeals court has had a chance to rule on it. So voter ID will not be in place for the election next month,
We do have our share of voter fraud here. The city of Milwaukee is loaded with invalid or outdated voter registrations. I think the Dem candidate can pick up a good chunk of fraud votes here.
The bigger issue we have in Wisconsin is the fact Obama is black. There is a good chance that a larger part of the black community comes out for Obama whereas they didn’t have interest in other non Presidential elections over the last two years.
For whatever reasons, the black community in Milwaukee really didn’t get energized by the Scott Walker elections. The real state money here goes to the largely white teachers and public employees and those were the motivated voters in our Walker battles.
Your point about black voters in WI (and elsewhere) is right on target. Voter participation really jumped in 2008, due mainly to two demographics: (1) blacks and (2) young adults. I am thinking the blacks will be back, although maybe in not as large a number, and that the young adults will return to their former level of voter participation. This is why I think the 2008 model is too optimistic for the Dems (b/c the youth won’t turn-out) and the 2004 model is too optimistic for the Reps (b/c/ the blacks will turn-out).