Posted on 01/25/2005 6:48:24 AM PST by Jean S
A review of Milwaukee voting records from the Nov. 2 presidential election has found more than 1,200 ballots cast from invalid addresses in the city, including many cases in which the voter could not be located at all.
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The number is a result of a detailed computer analysis by the Journal Sentinel of the city’s voter records and represents about 0.4% of the 277,535 ballots cast in the city in the hard-fought election. Some of the problems may be due to flawed record keeping, such as transposed digits or incorrect street names. Many others, however, cannot easily be explained.
The newspaper’s review, the most extensive analysis done so far of the election, revealed 1,242 votes coming from a total of 1,135 invalid addresses. That is, in some cases more than one person is listed as voting from the address. Of the 1,242 voters with invalid addresses, 75% registered on site on election day, according to city records.
While the number is not enough to have determined the outcome of the statewide presidential contest, the revelation prompted renewed criticism Monday by state Republicans and raised concerns at City Hall about how well records were kept on and after a frenzied election day.
Already, the newspaper has reported that about 8,300 more votes were cast than the number of people recorded by the city as voting. This appears to be due to cases where cards from those who presented identification and registered on election day could not be processed, a gap that the city’s own estimates had put at more than 10,000.
In any case, those are not included in the city database and are not part of the paper’s review, which involved checking each voter’s address against two separate lists of properties in the city.
A spot check of addresses that came back as invalid found cases where the address in question is a park, a baseball diamond and at or near the W. Wisconsin Ave. bridge. In most cases, though, there simply was no building at that address.
“I suspect it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Rick Graber, chairman of the state Republican Party. “If there ever was a need for a full-blown, real investigation into what went on, this is enough evidence for it.”
He said the investigation should be done by an outside entity, not a task force such as the one appointed by Mayor Tom Barrett that includes only city employees.
Barrett Chief of Staff Patrick Curley said the newspaper’s findings underscore the need to improve the handling of elections, particularly large-turnout ones that strain the system.
Curley said he believes the problematic addresses - less than 1% of those who voted - are a sign of procedural problems in the Election Commission office, not widespread fraud.
“The process is what we’ve charged the election task force with,” Curley said. “Obviously, improvements are needed.”
Lisa Artison, executive director of the city Election Commission, said simply: “The results you obtained make it clear the new statewide voter system is very badly needed and long overdue.”
But that system, to be online late this year, will do little to safeguard against problems with same-day voter registration, or with the flood of registration cards the city received in the final days before Nov. 2.
While those who register on election day have to present valid identification, it is impossible to check on the spot if the address provided is valid.
Indeed, the city has been unable to process thousands of the registration cards, which officials say are illegible or are lacking required information, such as a birth date. Thus, those voters cannot be sent verification cards, as required under state law.
Artison was to meet Monday with the district attorney’s office to discuss the cards that could not be processed, but the meeting was postponed. Artison said Mike Mahoney, the assistant district attorney in charge of election issues, asked for the meeting.
Under state law, verification cards that are returned as undeliverable must be sent to the local district attorney, though the Journal Sentinel has found spotty compliance statewide. Artison has said “several hundred” of the 73,079 cards that were sent out Jan. 6 have come back. Those have not yet been forwarded to the district attorney.
Questions about the accuracy of the city’s voter rolls, and whether adequate safeguards are in place to prevent fraud, were raised before the Nov. 2 election.
Six days before the election, the state Republican Party challenged 5,619 addresses on the city voter rolls as non-existent, including vacant lots, a billboard and a gyros stand. The challenge, though, was rejected by the city Election Commission, which said the GOP had not met the high legal standard for dropping names from voter rolls.
A review by the city attorney’s office found many cases where the addresses did exist, but could be explained by errors such as numbers from registration cards that were transposed. In other cases, though, officials agreed that addresses on the GOP list didn’t exist.
The city later agreed to have poll workers require identification from anyone attempting to vote from addresses on the GOP list.
At the time, the Republican Party acknowledged that it could not say whether anyone had voted from non-existent addresses in past elections - and since the election, it has made no specific allegations of fraudulent voting in Milwaukee.
Nevertheless, the Journal Sentinel filed an open records request Nov. 8 seeking a computerized list of all registered voters, including a notation of those recorded as having voted Nov. 2. The city provided the information Thursday.
In checking the list for invalid addresses, the newspaper used computer software to compare the addresses of all 269,212 recorded as voting against a U.S. Postal Service list of addresses. That process revealed 31,255 questionable addresses - but that was mainly due to apartment buildings, in which the software read a unit number as an unmatchable address.
Once those were taken out, about 2,900 addresses remained. Each was then entered into the City of Milwaukee’s own database of properties. At that point, about 1,100 non-existent addresses remained.
As an additional step, the newspaper sent reporters to 40 randomly selected suspect addresses. None of them existed.
At that point, reporters tried to match the names of a sample 300 of the listed voters against other public records, to determine if a clerical error was involved.
In about 20% of the cases, it appears as though a clerical error led to the invalid address. For example, one voter’s address was incorrectly listed as 3130 S. 15th St., which does not exist. That person does live at 3130 S. 15th Place, however. In other cases, digits in an address were transposed.
Shirley Dolgner, 73 and a first-time voter in November, was surprised to learn that what she had dutifully printed out on her card on election day was wrong in the city’s system.
Her S. 68th St. address, where she has lived for 20-plus years, went into the voter rolls as S. 63rd St.
“I wrote this myself. Why would this come up like this?” she said. “If this is the system, it’s not working very well.”
But for 80% of the other names in that sample list, no one with the name could immediately be found in other public record searches. That means there are potentially hundreds of cases in which a vote was counted for someone whose existence could not be confirmed, at an address that does not exist.
Graber said that points to the need for election reforms, such as requiring that all voters present photo identification at the polls.
“I think it’s probably premature to judge if it’s incompetence or fraud,” he said. “I think the answers will become clearer as more investigation is done.”
The state GOP filed its own open records request for election information Nov. 16. Graber said the party has not yet received the information it requested.
Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has vetoed the photo identification requirement and says he will do so again. It is opposed by many Democrats, including Barrett, who say it could become an impediment to voting for some.
One safeguard against fraud is the quality of the list of eligible voters, which typically is purged only once every four years - after a presidential contest. Milwaukee is planning to update its list soon, in part to check its accuracy as it becomes part of a new statewide voter list.
Each state must have such a list in place under a federal law passed after the 2000 election. Wisconsin’s is to be completed late this year. It will be set up so that if a voter moves to a new community, that person’s name would automatically be dropped from the previous address.
As it stands now, names can be left on the list for years, leaving the door open for someone to fraudulently vote from the address or to identify himself or herself as someone else and vote. It is impossible to detect that sort of fraud through a computer review such as this one.
From the Stranded on Blue Islands Blog:
http://mytwocommoncents.blogspot.com/2005/01/revealing-conversation-with-wi-gop.html
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
A Revealing Conversation With A WI GOP Official
Racine, Wisocnsin is a pretty industrial city on Lake Michigan. Bush won Racine County by a little over 4,000 votes but got trounced in the many concentrated Democrat wards in the actual City of Racine.
Comparing the 2000 results with 2004 results in the city of Racine, I found nothing strange. Racine population declined 1.9% between 2000 and 2004. Turnout increased 15% but the increase split evenly between Kerry and Bush. That's reassuring but doesn't explain away strange happenings.
I talked to the Racine County GOP Chairman, Lou D'Abbraccio, who is waiting on voter records from the Racine City Clerk and expects them by the end of the month. His intent is to compare them to death, real estate, and felon lists.
Of most concern for Mr. D'Abbraccio is thirty vanloads of voters brought in by liberal activists. Most of these voters had no ID or utility bills and it was the liberal activists themselves who vouched for them as residents -- as allowed by law -- allowing them to vote. At one point things got so ugly regarding challenges that the Attorney General had to intervene. It seems the people who vouched for the ID-less were refusing to sign a particular form swearing these voters were residents. The AG told them it was required and if they were found lying it was a federal offense. They refused to sign, the vans stopped coming, but hundreds had gotten through.
Also, there are community centers that only hold so many people. It's his desire to see how many listed the center as an address. This should be interesting. Stay tuned...
Please GOD turn Wisconsin into a red state!!!!!!!!!
Note: the newest Jib-Jab video shows Iowa as a blue state. WRONG- Iowa went RED!
Please GOD turn Wisconsin into a red state!!!!!!!!!
Note: the newest Jib-Jab video shows Iowa as a blue state. WRONG- Iowa went RED!
Washington State and Wisconsin, twins in the worst sense.
The RATS have been whining about vote fraud. Okay, let's really look into vote fraud. They will be the losers.
Gee, is a photo on a driver's license an impediment to driving for some?
My prediction about what will happen: nothing. City of Milwaukee is stonewalling. It will be an infuriating couple of Journal Sentinel stories, and that's about it. Talk shows will rant...but little else. The only good that can come of this is the Republicans in the legislature use the issue to pressure some moderate democrats to vote to override Gov. Doyle's promised veto of the next voter reform bill (which will include voter ID among other measures).
BTW, I emailed Doyle too and got the same response as the other Wisconsinite here.
2% of the votes were fradulent for Kerry. This is a standard baseline, year after year.
15% of the vote was swayed by the democrat party's massive MSM machine to vote democrat.
The final real vote was 31% Kerry, 68% Bush.
of course it is, didn't you see the DU thread "Gregoire should resign"? /sarc off
No sh!t?
Maybe that's why most places that try to have clean elections don't permit same-day registration!
"the states involved are Democrat Party controlled"
Not in Ohio..................
Democrat vote fraud? Who'da thunk?
Fraud from a state that Kerry won on election day?? Impossible!!!
They claim it's because "minorities often don't have ID", therefore the requirement impedes minority voting.
My answer is, "send them to the DMV for an ID card."
What shocks me is that it's the banner headline in today's paper.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - GOP fails to get 5,619 names removed from voting lists
...Republicans filed a challenge of 5,619 names at 4:57 p.m. Wednesday, three minutes before the legal deadline. The party identified the addresses as vacant after using a computer to compare 386,527 names on city registration lists against a U.S. Postal Service database of all known street addresses in the city. Of the 5,619 addresses listed, the party submitted 34 photos of cases where an address didn't exist, was a vacant lot, or - in one case - a gyro stand. In nine of those cases, the GOP said voting records showed someone was listed as having voted from that address in recent elections.The commission, though, tossed out the entire challenge, with Republican appointee Edward Schultz joining two Democrats in saying the case wasn't strong enough.....
Already, the newspaper has reported that about 8,300 more votes were cast than the number of people recorded by the city as voting. This appears to be due to cases where cards from those who presented identification and registered on election day could not be processed, a gap that the city’s own estimates had put at more than 10,000.
In any case, those are not included in the city database and are not part of the paper’s review, which involved checking each voter’s address against two separate lists of properties in the city.
Since the paper doesn't make the logical leap of math, I will. Depending on which set of numbers is used, there were AT LEAST 9,600-11,400 fraudulent votes cast in the city of Milwaukee. President Bush lost Wisconsin by 11,384 votes.
Hey, Jesse, Wisconsin needs you!! I know you are going to get right on this -- NOT!!
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Invalid Addresses
Kane: