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Saturday, September 17, 2005

As long as we're talking Wisconsin voters . . .

The non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau has released its report on the state-wide voting problems, including potential fraud, in November, 2004.

What's that, you say? You mean there was fraud outside of Milwaukee? Oh, yes indeedy. And gosh, it sure was nice to see Republicans falling all over themselves to investigate it, eh? I won't belabor the details--others have, just check here--but I do want to pull in the newspaper's sidebar of the LAB's recommendations for improving voting accuracy:
Recommendations for improvement
The Legislative Audit Bureau recommended lawmakers consider changes that would:
  • Move up the cutoff date for registration so clerks have more time to prepare voter lists.
  • Establish tighter requirements for special registration deputies and prohibit them from being paid by the number of people registered.
  • Create uniform, statewide requirements for demonstrating proof of residence.
  • Authorize civil penalties for local election officials and municipalities not complying with the law.
  • Require mandatory election training for municipal clerks.
Notice what's missing from that list? Anyone? Anyone? Buel-ler? Bingo: photo ID.

Oh, sure, I suppose you could make that case that voter ID fits in to number three, there, the "uniform" requirements for "proof of address." But the non-partisan (I can't stress that enough) LAB did not say it had to be photo ID, proving once again that Republicans are pursuing an agenda based on stopping Democratic-voting minorities in Milwaukee from exercising the franchise. More than that, though, take a moment to skim over the recommendations of (Democratic) Governor Jim Doyle and (Democrat but elected non-partisanly) Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Both of them saw the same problems the LAB did and recommended the same sloutions--more and better-trained poll workers, restrictions on deputy registrars, and so on--at the same time Republicans were flogging voter ID bills. So one of two things is true:
  1. Republican legilsators are wrong.
  2. Everyone else--Democrat, independent, non-partisan--is wrong.
Any guesses whether the Republicans will apologize this time?

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