http://www.dailycardinal.com/article/2072

The problems of elections in Wisconsin extend far beyond partisan trickery. The MPD is both irresponsible and intentionally disingenuous to throw a pull quote of “The reports of more ballots cast than voters recorded were found to be true” at the top of the 67-page report. If you read through the entire thing, you will find HUNDREDS of clerical errors committed by those in charge of electoral administration. This includes entire STACKS of absentee ballots being thrown out, hundreds of voter registrations being entered TWICE, and others not entered at all.

Do you think this might somehow account in part for the gap in votes recorded and votes cast?

GOP-backers also love to claim that the lack of voter ID requirements and/or the ineptitude of poll workers are a hindrance to prosecution, as if fraudulent voting was so widespread and certain that, in the absence of those obstacles, we’d have an electoral crime wave every general election. In 2005 the Republican Party of Wisconsin took a formal complaint of the 9 most likely double-voters straight to the DOJ, and came back empty-handed – all attributable to clerical errors. This is the Bush Administration’s DOJ, mind you. You can keep exaggerating the extent of voter fraud all you want, but it’s simply not happening on a scale that would justify the imposition of new electoral requirements that shrink the overall size of the electorate rather than target the most likely criminals. Despite the MJS having reported 361 felon votes (the report found the real figure later to be 220), those votes account for .002% of ALL WISCONSIN VOTERS IN THAT ELECTION.

It goes on and on. The felon votes? Their address are supplied by the DOC – Wisconsin’s Voter Reg database won’t even pick them up. The registration cards didn’t even include the state-mandated language on them declaring felons ineligible to vote. One person in 2004 even voted WITH THEIR STATE OFFENDER CARD as corroborating identification.

If the Republican Party of Wisconsin really cared about electoral integrity, they would overhaul the entire electoral administration system, not put the burden on the voters. But it sure makes the government look stupid when we contract out a software company to put together our HAVA-mandated voter reg database, blow $27 million on it, update it once every 4 years, and then mess up royally every general election because of our abysmal records-keeping.

I also have some interesting reports documenting those “claims” of GOP-backed voter suppression you might be interested in, Templeton.