The Republican Party of Wisconsin charged Thursday that the city of Milwaukee registered 1,600 possibly fraudulent voters. But Democrats responded that Republicans were the ones corrupting the election process.
State Republican leaders held a news conference in a parking lot across from a freeway bridge in Milwaukee, picking the location, they said, because someone had voted using the address, which is actually vacant land under the interstate highway.
"We shouldn't have to hold this news conference every election, but we will until the city of Milwaukee gets its act together and cleans up its list," RPW Chair Brad Courtney said in a release. "Every fraudulent vote cancels out the legitimate vote of someone else in the state."
The RPW recently took Milwaukee's voter list and compared it with software the U.S. Postal Service uses for its mail delivery. According to RPW Executive Director Rick Wiley, after 2,900 addresses were mailed postcards to check their legitimacy, more than 1,600 postcards were returned as undeliverable, indicating the addresses don't exist.
But state Democrats are calling the Republican efforts "scare tactics."
"[Republicans] are down in the polls in 2006, and it's a great year for Democrats, so Republicans are doing everything they can to try to stop people from voting and to steal the Nov. 7 election," said Jessica Erickson, communications director for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
In 2004, the RPW uncovered 5,619 addresses on Milwaukee's voter list that didn't exist, including addresses of food stands and places between houses. The following year, the Republican-controlled state Legislature passed a bill that would require a photo ID to vote, but Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed it.
"Nothing that bill would have done would have deterred fraud," DPW Executive Director Michael Murphy said.
Murphy also noted a number of "suppression efforts" by Republicans in past elections, including placing people behind election inspectors with a "Blackberry to stare at voters and take down their information as they identify themselves to poll workers."
"Republicans are using scare tactics to keep young people from voting, along with people of color, low-income people and the elderly," he added.
And while the Republicans are working to protect the integrity of state elections, so are the Democrats. According to Murphy, the DPW will station hundreds of attorneys at the polls come Election Day.
"We are sending advocates for college students to polls so they are able to exercise their right to cast a ballot," Murphy said. "If they don't have documentation, we are there to make sure they have a provisional ballot."
To investigate allegations of fraud, Milwaukee paid an independent firm to compare its list of about 299,800 registered voters to the U.S. Postal Service's list, said Sue Edman, executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.
The investigation returned about 2,900 addresses — nearly 1 percent of the list — that were suspect. After review, city officials determined some discrepancies were due to renamed streets, addresses at the Veteran's Administration Hospital and human error in typing addresses into the Statewide Voter Registration System.
"RPW applauds Sue Edman for putting politics aside and taking a proactive approach to restoring legitimate elections in Wisconsin's largest city," Wiley said.
