Milwaukee Election Fraud/ Reform

I'm still trying to catch up on what I missed from last week. I guess Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's commission finished its work on how to reform Milwaukee's election process to avoid the mess that came to light in November--and probably existed long before that, just without scrutiny.

The recommemdations are really quite simple, and mirror what I have been saying all along, that Milwaukee's problems stem not from concerted efforts at fraud but from understaffing and undertraining. Since yesterday I took the paper's editorial board to task, I have to give them credit for being right today (emphasis in the original):

Wisconsin Republicans have been harping on what is really a side issue, largely not germane to the electoral breakdown that took place in Milwaukee and around Wisconsin last November: a proposal to require that every time you vote, you show a Wisconsin driver's license or a state or military ID card.

That photo ID mandate would not have stopped the fraud that unscrupulous registrars perpetrated when they handed in names of people they falsely claimed had registered to vote. A task force recommendation would curb such fraud, however: Outlaw the practice of paying registrars for each new name.

A photo ID mandate would not have stopped the 200 felons from voting who allegedly shouldn't have last November. After all, the felons gave their real names. A driver's license doesn't indicate whether a person is a felon. A task force recommendation would discourage felons from casting ballots, however: Inform voters prominently on registration cards and in address-verification cards mailed to new voters that felons still on probation or parole are prohibited from voting. Better yet is Gov. Jim Doyle's proposal that voters check a box indicating they have read such a notice - which, in turn, would give prosecutors a hook for bringing charges should felons vote anyway.

A photo ID mandate would have stopped one case of alleged fraud, as reported in a criminal complaint filed last week. The voter gave different addresses in allegedly registering and voting twice, the first time using a driver's license, the second time a Social Security card. But enforcement of existing rules would have also stemmed any fraud. A Social Security card is not supposed to be accepted as a proof of residence.

A photo ID mandate would not have stopped the vast bulk of the rampant miscues and errors last November because they did not stem from identification fraud. But the recommendations of the task force would accomplish that task, because they zero in on the actual causes of what went wrong.

There were, according to a non-partisan investigation, 100 or so instances of same-day registrants who were gaming the system in some way, including the Social-Security card user cited above. Actual enforcement of the law would have stopped most of them, I am willing to bet, and anyone who took the trouble to dig up identification to register falsely and vote could have faked an ID, as well. The investigation didn't look at the other 200,000 or so votes for fraud, but even if fraud existed among those votes (at the same rate, that may have been a whopping 300 instances), better organization at City Hall would have caught the phony registrations.

So let J-Dizzle veto the voter ID bill again, so that we don't inconvenience the other 3,000,000 or so voters around the state, and let Milwaukee fix its own house. If, after the additional measures and intense scrutiny in November 2006 show that there is still room for fraud or abuse, then we can talk about moving Wisconsin's voting laws to a par with the lowest-turnout states in the nation.