Voter rights and expanding access to the polls are the main topics of the Institute for One Wisconsin’s second annual “Protect Wisconsin’s Vote Education Summit,” set for Tuesday at Madison’s Museum of Contemporary Art on State Street. Among the speakers will be Adam Skaggs, Counsel in the Democracy Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

The multimedia program will include a panel discussion, video presentations and speakers on a host of voter rights issues, including: Early voting and voter registration modernization, strengthening and protecting absentee balloting, accessibility to the polls, ex-offender re-enfranchisement, pitfalls of voter ID and benefits of preserving same day registration.

From Milwaukee County First, of which I am the Chair:

For many years, riders of the Milwaukee County Transit System has seen its routes get cut and the fares go up, as less and less money is available for it. Once a standard for the nation, it has been in steady decline. This year, it has been recommended by the current administration, contrary to all advice, to again slash routes by up to 40% and raise fares by charging a quarter for each transfer. This will have a devastating effect on the local economy, not just of Milwaukee County, but for the entire southeast region of Wisconsin.

Likewise, the Milwaukee County Parks System has seen cuts for each of the past 27 years. This year will be no different, except that it appears that the parks will suffer the most severe cuts yet. Some of the options being considered by the current administration is closing ALL of the outdoor swimming pools, closing both community centers, and cutting maintenance at the senior centers.

Let's list the reasons why US Attorney Steve Biskupic could have been put on the firing list by Karl Rove:

1. Georgia Thompson

2. 14 indictments, just 5 convictions

3. One of the double voters was a conservative...

But he probably got two gold stars for these brilliant convictions:

43 year old grandmother who mistakenly thought she could vote, and even tried to rescind her vote when she discovered she couldn't...

...and this 23 year old who will probably never vote again...

Just all in a good day's work for the "Grand Ole Party." 

Green Bay’s Republican City Clerk is using what should be a non-partisan office to push his right-wing political agenda to restrict voting rights.

Chad Weininger, the former deputy chief of staff for ex-Rep. Mark Green (R) who was a staunch advocate for restrictive voter ID laws in Congress and throughout his unsuccessful campaign for governor, is pushing weak evidence of “voter fraud” in order to claim the state needs to restrict voting by requiring ID at the polls:

-- One case involves a patient who’s on probation at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute who cast an absentee ballot.

-- Another case involves a man who used a local business as his home address when registering to vote.

-- A third case involves a man who listed a post office box as his residential address, which isn't legal on voter registration.

This is not voter fraud – this is voter registration error. These people were not casting multiple ballots or engaging in wide-scale fraud. They were just seeking to cast a single ballot for themselves. And isn’t that merely what we’re granted under the constitution? One man, one vote?

A City Clerk’s job should be to ensure that everyone who wants to vote gets access and opportunity to cast a ballot. A clerk’s job is not to prevent as many people as he can from casting ballots, which is what a voter ID requirement would do.

Dear Minority Leader Fitzgerald (the Assembly one),

Happy 2009!

We, the articles and sections which make up the Wisconsin Constitution, noticed that on top of financing the cost of you and your family's health care, that you are spending some of the people's tax dollars having your ample staff waste time and resources creating something called the Joint Committee on Economic Stimulus Accountability.

An important member of our team, Article IV, also known as “Legislative,” wanted to remind you that since your party is not in charge of the state Assembly, you currently do not enjoy the authority to create committees.
 

Five.

Five people remain under investigation for casting an improper ballot on Election Day in Milwaukee County.

Five. Out of nearly 500,000 votes cast.

And the crusade to criminalize voting continues. The de-facto leader this time around? Milwaukee County Assistant DA Bruce Landgraf. Despite the lack of any substantiated evidence of a “wide-spread conspiracy” to commit voter fraud and contrary to every non-partisan study about voter fraud that consistently debunk conservative claims of voter fraud, “leaders” like Landgraf and Wisconsin AG JB Van Hollen continue to try any means necessary to trump up charges of voter fraud in a wide-spread conspiracy to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters.

We are a full month removed from the election and all reports indicate that it ran very smoothly. Unfortunately some appear bound and determined to find something...anything to further denigrate Milwaukee voters. Wispolitics reports in their Milwaukee Notes, that Milwaukee Assistant DA Bruce Landgraf is predicting that “some additional cases” could surface once municipalities finish scanning records. Great, just what we needed, a thread of hope that allows the right wing hysteria to continue!

After hundreds of thousands of votes in Milwaukee, since that is apparently the only place where we look over voters shoulders, there were no significant signs of mischief. The report names only the following Election Day issues: a confused women that voted absentee and then again at the polls but then reported it herself. A man that is suspected of voting himself and then with his deceased wife’s absentee ballot. Ten cases of a specific type that are usually caused by clerical error or confusion over similar names. Three absentee ballots that were challenged on Election Day by an off-duty Milwaukee detective.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s partisan lawsuit against the Government Accountability Board (GAB) endangered the right to vote for scores of Wisconsinites. It also forced taxpayers to pay the bill coming and going. Thanks to J.B. we had to pay for both filing the frivolous lawsuit and for defending against it. Now we find out that it may have cost the state in a few other ways.

Over the weekend the Associated Press reported that two assistant attorneys general told Van Hollen’s top aide that they were close to reaching a favorable settlement on cases in which they were representing the GAB. They also advised him that filing Van Hollen’s suit against the GAB would derail their progress in the matter saying:

However, as I also indicated, there is virtually no likelihood of exploring, much less settling, these cases if this office files an action against GAB ... If such a filing is in the offing, you need to know this.

Not only was the partisan suit “in the offing” but Van Hollen actually filed it a very short time after being warned about the consequences that it would have on his office’s defense of the GAB in other cases.

Thankfully Van Hollen’s partisan lawsuit was thrown out of court before it was allowed to disenfranchise Wisconsin voters in an election that by all accounts ran very smoothly. Unfortunately, there still were other casualties of his partisan lawsuit: taxpayer dollars and important cases where he should have been focused on defending the State of Wisconsin not suing it.

Another presidential election has come and gone in Wisconsin, and once again by all accounts it went as smoothly as possible. Although the right wing, led by Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whipped up as much frenzy and paranoia as they could, there has been no sign of the mischief that they predicted on Election Day.

Before the election, Van Hollen went as far as to jeopardize hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin votes by filing what was clearly both a partisan and frivolous lawsuit which was rightfully thrown out of court. As in 2004, this year Wisconsin seemed to have a very smooth Election Day with very high turnout. Actually, this year Wisconsin had the second highest turnout in the nation. This is something to be encouraged and not stifled for purely political purposes.

After having his partisan lawsuit thrown out of court, J.B. Van Hollen suggested that he might appeal the matter to a higher court. Given the smooth election that we just had in Wisconsin, J.B. should abandon his partisan suit and stop wasting taxpayer dollars over a problem that for all practical purposes does not even exist.

In 2004 Peggy Lautenschlager, now an attorney for Lawton & Cates, said she also used DOJ personnel to monitor polling places on Election Day, but her efforts were focused on making sure voters got their chance to vote.

"It is clear that under the guise of stopping alleged voter fraud he is concerned about obtaining voter suppression," she said.

Van Hollen said earlier this week that he planned to send out his own team of agents and attorneys, saying voters, "have a right to vote in fair elections untainted by election fraud."

Lautenschlager said her efforts in 2004 were "diametrically opposite to what Van Hollen is proposing to do on Tuesday."

From the moment that state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen filed his frivolous lawsuit against the Government Accountability Board (GAB) it was clear to any honest observer that it was without merit and motivated by rank partisanship. That was confirmed later when it was revealed that Van Hollen’s office had multiple communications with Republican Party officials prior to filing the suit.

While trying to defend his partisan actions, Van Hollen insisted that the GAB was not following the law even though it was carrying out the proper checks as required. Van Hollen’s insistence on checking names retroactively all the way back to 2006 would have caused mass chaos at the polls and could have disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters. All of this drama over some nonexistent requirement that Van Hollen, a McCain co-chair, made up out of whole cloth.

Republicans have been busy slandering ACORN in recent weeks improperly alleging “voter fraud.” One has to wonder how these same people will respond to the fact that the California Republican Party hired a firm whose owner has been arrested for possible voter registration fraud.

Reports state that Mark Jacoby, owner of Young Political Majors, was arrested for fraudulently registering himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California. If true, it would appear that he committed the crime in an attempt to get an easy pay check from the GOP. If we are using the same flawed model as conservatives have used with ACORN, then we must condemn the GOP for engaging in some grand conspiracy to commit “voter fraud.”

To add insult to injury, there was an entirely different problem with Jacoby and his firm’s actions. The arrest actually came after dozens of voters said that they were duped into registering as Republicans by people employed by Jacoby. The Republican Party of California was paying his firm $7 to $12 for every person that they could get registered.

How long will we have to wait for conservatives to start feigning outrage over the actions of the California Republican Party and the arrested leader of the firm that they themselves hired?

It has certainly become an important question. Just Who Will JB Van Hollen Disenfranchise if the partisan lawsuit that he has filed is successful? According to the Government Accountability Board the answer could be over one million Wisconsin voters.

We already know that Van Hollen’s office communicated with Republican Party of Wisconsin officials about the suit before it was actually filed and we are also well aware of the fact that Van Hollen is a co-chair of the John McCain presidential campaign. We have seen these kinds of partisan uses of public office before and we will not let Florida in 2000 become Wisconsin in 2008!

To this end, One Wisconsin Now is debuting a new web video entitled “WWJBD?” to ensure that people across Wisconsin have the facts and know the impact if Van Hollen’s partisan lawsuit succeeds. It includes a petition to tell Van Hollen once and for all to dump this partisan lawsuit. You can VIEW THE VIDEO at SaveWisconsinsVote.org!

Please watch the video, sign the petition and pass it along to your friends! The more people that see this video and sign the petition, the louder our untied voice will be. We are not only left with the question, “who will JB disenfranchise?” but more importantly we must ask ourselves, what are we prepared to do about it?

The Wisconsin Republican Party has issued a call for volunteer poll watchers for Election Day, and the criteria is a little specific, seeking especially folks made of sterner stuff.

Jonathan Waclawski, the party's election day operations, wrote in a Sept. 8 e-mail that he needed contact information for people "who would potentially be willing to volunteer ... at inner city (more intimidating) polling places. Particularly, I am interested in names of Milwaukee area veterans, policemen, security personnel, firefighters etc. ... If you have any connections with such organizations, please pass that information on."