Why do Republicans hate Democracy?
or, #&$! you, Scott Walker

Our supposedly non-partisan--but former Republican legislative leader--County Executive Scott Walker doesn't want to ensure that there are ballots aplenty her in the Democratic city of Milwaukee. You'd think Republicans would try to be more subtle about disenfrachisement, wouldn't you? But I guess not. Here's the poop:

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, citing vote-fraud concerns, is publicly balking at a City of Milwaukee request for almost 260,000 additional ballots in anticipation of high turnout for the Nov. 2 presidential election.

Mayor Tom Barrett blasted Walker's stance, and Common Council President Willie Hines Jr. immediately joined in, saying it was an attempt to suppress the central-city vote.

"I'm going to lay this at the footsteps of the county if there aren't enough ballots in the city," said Barrett.

Barrett said that the 679,000 ballots the county had agreed to print were less than the amount prepared for the presidential election in 2000 as well as for the the gubernatorial race in 2002. He and the city's top election official said that the city requested 938,000 ballots from the county, which, by law, pays for and prints ballots.

Look, turnout will be astronomical this year, versus 2000, and if Walker thinks we'll need fewer ballots he's a bigger idiot than I thought he was. (And I was no fan before.)

Did I mention Walker is a co-chair of the Whopper™'s re-election campaign?

What's truly amazing is how some other Republican officials aren't even making pretend that encourageing people to vote is important:

More specifically, it involves central-city voters, most of them minorities, thousands of whom have been registered in recent months by voter-registration groups. Those efforts, though non-partisan, are widely viewed as helping the Democrats; Bush drew just 2% in 2000 in Milwaukee's predominantly African-American voting wards.

The chairman of the county commission, Doug Haag, who is also the Republican Party's chairman in Milwaukee County, went further.

Haag said Republican Party officials questioned why voter-registration groups seem to target only Milwaukee's central city and students on the city's east side. And he noted that Wisconsin has same-day registration.

"Why is there this need to get all these people registered?" Haag said. "If people want to vote, they will vote. If they want to stay in bed and not vote, they don't have to bother."

Yep, Doug, those Democrats can just stay in bed on November 2, sure. No skin off your nose, eh?

I doubt Walker's stupidity here is a part of what seems to be a nation-wide effort by Republicans and Republican sympathizers to stifle Democratic turnout (note what's going on in Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota (where Janklow claims it's national!), Florida . . .). But he's certainly not doing anything to help the image of Republicans in this cycle. It seems to me that anyone even remotely involved in the logistics of voting this year would want to do everything possible to avoid controversy and even the appearance of impropriety. We are too polarized an electorate for anyone with half a brain cell--Republican or Democrat--to think that even the merest whiff of scandal will not blow back.

Arrrgh. Anyway, you know what to do:

email: CountyExec@milwcnty.com 
Snail: 901 N. 9th Street
Courthouse, Room 306, Milwaukee, WI 53233-1458
Voice: 414-278-4211
Fax: 414-223-1375

Update: kos has a good list.