Last Thursday, the Racine Journal Times reported that a group called Project Vote is under investigation by authorities for turning in suspicious voter registration forms and that the city of Racine has banned those registrars allegedly responsible from turning in any more. In another disturbing case, the New Voters Project, an organization present on this campus, has also reportedly turned in thousands of dubious forms.
The Journal Times reported that Racine city officials have received “thousands” of new voter registration forms and that some forms, “appear to have been filled out and supposedly signed by voters without the voters’ knowledge.”
Wisconsin law allows deputized registrars working for non-governmental organizations to register citizens eligible to vote and submit those forms accordingly. Racine Mayor Gary Becker believes registrars from Project Vote may have pulled random names from the phone book and registered them without their knowledge. For example, signatures on applications supposedly for three individuals named Pflugrad, Phlieger and Phlieger all had “suspiciously similar” signatures and were already registered to vote.
Among the nearly 1,400 voter registration forms turned in as of Sept. 1, some of the startling findings included 59 forms for already registered voters, two for non-citizens and duplicate forms for the same person on multiple occasions. The Racine City Clerk’s office sent letters out to addresses on 96 suspicious forms, and already, 16 were returned as undeliverable.
This suspicious pattern of alleged fraud and forgery raises numerous questions, not the least of which is why the deputy registrars submitted the invalid registrations. Could registrars be submitting fraudulent voter registration forms with the intent of later casting fraudulent votes?
Besides Project Vote, Milwaukee radio talk show host Mark Belling has reported that the New Voters Project, another questionable voter mobilization organization, “sent in thousands (yes, thousands) of dubious registration forms that lack legally required identification.”
Incidentally, the Wisconsin campus director of this organization which has a strong presence here in Madison is Jessy Tolkan, who herself has had history with election fraud. In spring 2001, Tolkan gave up her seat on the Madison City Council amid allegations that she lied about her legal residence on her nominating papers. The property manager of the Randall Street apartment where she claimed residency later confirmed in the Wisconsin State Journal that Tolkan was never a tenant there. When running for ASM Student Council as a freshman, she was forced to perform community service before assuming her seat due to campaign violations.
Also, Belling stated, “One former employee of the New Voter Project has told me that many staffers simply took names out of the telephone book to fill out their daily quotas. He quit his job in fear there’d be a criminal investigation.”
Even in the unlikely event that innocent mistakes caused the problems of Project Vote and the New Voters Project, the incidents raise questions about the lax voter registration and election laws in Wisconsin.
Belling succinctly outlined the flaws in the state’s elections laws, “Here’s the method to the New Voter Project madness. In Wisconsin, you can register to vote at the polls on Election Day. You have to produce identification when you register. But sending in a phony registration in advance puts you on the voter list before the election. Already-registered voters don’t have to show any identification. By putting perhaps thousands of fake names on the voter lists, it will be possible for fraudsters to show up at the polls and simply claim to be the person who was already ‘registered.'”
The fact that municipal clerks have noticed and attempted to verify some dubious voter registration forms does not prove the system works; Wisconsin law does not mandate municipal clerks to verify any applications completed through deputy registrars.
Even if municipal clerks did begin verifying each and every application completed through deputy registrars, they have little time to do so. Racine County Deputy District Attorney Michael Nieskes questioned how much of an investigation can be accomplished before the election, telling the Journal Times, “There may be a lot of paperwork to go through at this point.”
With nearly a month to go before the election, claims of voter disenfranchisement have already surfaced throughout the United States. In Wisconsin, the real voter disenfranchisement comes not from imaginary obstacles to suppress legitimate votes. Rather, it occurs from legitimate voters knowing that state election laws allow illegitimate, fraudulent votes to easily cancel their decision.
Mark A. Baumgardner ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in electrical engineering.