Stealing the 2008 Presidential Election

This isn't a local story. It's not a Wisconsin story. It's a national story.

The fact that a federal law is being disregarded in Wisconsin has the potential to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

The law in question is the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002.

The act requires states to build a central list of registered voters and cross-reference those names against driver's license and Social Security information to verify their identities. The law went into effect in Wisconsin on Jan. 1, 2006.

But the accountability board couldn't get the cross-check software to work until Aug. 6, and board staff discovered the program still red-flags about 20 percent of registrants for insignificant differences in their names across the databases. A person who uses a middle initial on the registration rolls but not on his or her driver's license, for example, would come up as a non-match.

The board told local election clerks to cross-check registrants since Aug. 6 rather than Jan. 1, 2006. The state Republican Party asked the board to apply the checks going back to Jan. 1, 2006, but the board refused, saying that would amount to up to a million names and so many innocent non-matches chaos would ensue at the polls.

Van Hollen, a Republican and co-chair of GOP presidential hopeful John McCain's Wisconsin campaign, filed suit last week, demanding the board mandate checks back to Jan. 1, 2006, since that's when the federal law went into effect. He wants the checks completed by the Nov. 4 election, now about six weeks away.

Democrats and their mouthpieces in the lib media are claiming that the suit is politically motivated.

They can assign motivation to Van Hollen, but it's irrelevant.

As Wisconsin's attorney general, he would be negligent if he did nothing while state officials simply blew off the Help America Vote Act.

In an attempt to quell concerns about voter fraud in Milwaukee County, Van Hollen joined with Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm to create a nonpartisan task force to investigate voter fraud allegations and any other wrongdoing involving the elections.

That's as it should be.

But there still is a very loud chorus of people blaming Van Hollen for acting improperly and charging him with a conflict of interest.

For instance, WISN 12 reports:

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen filed a lawsuit that could force voters to prove their identity or fill out provisional ballots come November.

During a press conference announcing a new election task force in Milwaukee County, Van Hollen defended his lawsuit forcing election officials to verify the identities of hundreds of thousands of voters.

How horrible to force officials to comply with a federal law and verify the identities of voters!

We don't want that, do we?

FOX 6 reports:

Van Hollen, a Republican and co-chair of GOP presidential hopeful John McCain's Wisconsin campaign, filed suit last week, demanding the board mandate checks back to Jan. 1, 2006, since that's when the federal law went into effect. He wants the checks completed by the Nov. 4 election, now about six weeks away.

The case could have repercussions at the polls.

If Van Hollen wins the suit before the election and the retroactive checks happen, thousands of voters who get red-flagged innocently could be knocked off the rolls. They would have to reregister at the polls by providing proof of residency or vote by provisional ballot and provide proof of residency by the end of the next day to have the ballot count. Either way, it could mean long lines and frustration on Election Day.

Democrats contend Van Hollen is playing into a Republican strategy to tamp down voter turnout, which could make all the difference for McCain in Wisconsin. Republican President Bush lost the state by only a few thousand votes in 2000 and again in 2004, and the race between McCain and Democrat Barack Obama in the Dairy State looks just as tight. Van Hollen says he's just enforcing the federal law.

Isn't it clear that Van Hollen is trying to follow the law?

Instead of whining about long lines at the polls and Election Day frustration, I think officials should obey the law. Anything less than complying with the law is unacceptable.

This is nuts:

The law went into effect in Wisconsin on Jan. 1, 2006.

But the accountability board couldn't get the cross-check software to work until Aug. 6, and board staff discovered the program still red-flags about 20 percent of registrants for insignificant differences in their names across the databases.

Two years to get the software to work and there are still bugs?

Wisconsin has been in violation of the law for years. There's a story there. Well OVER TWO YEARS?

What an embarrassment!

The accountability board needs to be held accountable.

And today, rather than focusing on that incompetence or pointing out the need to comply with federal law, this is the story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A GOP attorney complained to the state Department of Justice about two weeks before Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sued the state's elections authority, but Van Hollen said Thursday he was unaware of that contact.

Van Hollen, a co-chairman of U.S. Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign in Wisconsin, said he did not discuss the lawsuit with any Republican Party or McCain campaign official. He also said he had “no reason to believe” any of his aides discussed the case with the GOP or the McCain campaign.

But Chris Mohrman, an attorney for the Republican Party, said he complained to the Department of Justice about how the state was handling checks on voter data. The complaint came after an Aug. 27 meeting of the Government Accountability Board, at which the board refused to enact a rule on checking voter information requested by Mohrman on behalf of the party.

Mohrman and a Department of Justice spokesman declined to say whom Mohrman spoke with at the department, other than to say it was not Van Hollen.

“The elections board is violating the law, so of course we went to the attorney general,” Mohrman said. “There may have been multiple contacts, different people to different people.”

He said he did not consult with the department on legal theories beyond the issues the party raised publicly.

But Van Hollen in an interview earlier Thursday gave no indication of that contact.

“I can’t say for certain what (others at the Department of Justice) have or haven’t done with every minute of their day any more than they could speak about mine, but I have no reason to believe — none of them have reported to me — that they talked to anybody involved in the Republican Party or the McCain campaign about this lawsuit,” he said.

Also Thursday, a Dane County judge set a hearing for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday on whether Van Hollen should be disqualified from suing the Government Accountability Board. The board argues that he can’t sue because he already represents the board in other legal matters.

Ooh! What a scandal!

A GOP lawyer pushed the state to check voters!

A GOP lawyer expects Wisconsin to comply with federal law!

That's outrageous!

Good grief.

...Lester Pines, attorney for the board, said Mohrman’s statement that he’d complained to the Justice Department “fills in the background as to why the attorney general would sue a state agency.”

The thicket of legal motions, and attempts to intervene in the case, raises questions about whether the case can be resolved by the Nov. 4 presidential election.

The lawsuit has become as much a political battle as a legal fight. Republicans have praised Van Hollen for the suit, while Democrats have demanded that he step aside because of his ties to McCain, who is trying to become the first Republican presidential candidate to win Wisconsin since 1984.

By law, the board had to get the approval of Gov. Jim Doyle — co-chairman of Democrat Barack Obama’s Wisconsin primary campaign — to hire Pines, a prominent Democrat.

This is a disgrace.

The ramifications go well beyond Wisconsin's borders.

The state parties can keep quibbling and wasting time. Doyle and Van Hollen can lock horns. Whatever.

What matters is that Wisconsin isn't acting in accordance with the federal law.

It's inexcusable. It's a national disgrace.

All Americans should be troubled that Wisconsin is letting down the country when it comes to ensuring that the 2008 presidential election will be a fair race and won't be tainted by voter fraud.

When it comes to a national election, possible fraud in one state impacts every state and every citizen.
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