GAB ATTORNEY: OUST VAN HOLLEN FROM SUIT

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld.com

By Michael Horne


Thursday, September 18th, 2008, will be a busy one as Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen heads to Dane County Circuit Court to demand an emergency hearing for expedited proceedings in his suit against the Governmental Accountability Board. [Van Hollen v. GAB] Van Hollen wants the board to do a "HAVA" check on all people who registered to vote by mail since 2006. The GAB says it is not necessary, and that many of the voters may have participated in as many as seven elections since registering.
Lester A. Pines, the Madison attorney hired to represent the GAB and its members, filed a motion Wednesday, September 16th, 2008, asking Van Hollen and all attorneys at the Department of Justice to withdraw from this case, since the DOJ represents the GAB in at least two pending court matters, and for the department to sue the GAB would be a violation of the ethical duty of justice department lawyers to provide "undivided loyalty to their current clients," as required by Supreme Court rules.[motion for disqualitication.pdf] The motion also calls for a stay of all proceedings until this motion can be decided.
It still makes me wonder why Van Hollen brought this case instead of the Republican Party. Perhaps he thought he added some gravitas and urgency to the case. It just looks like a massive conflict of interest from here.
GAB Director and General Counsel Kevin Kennedy issued an affidavit stating that Justice department lawyers asked him to waive their conflict of interest in this case. He said he refused to do so.[080917.Kennedy Affidavit.pdf]
Also on Wednesday, Attorney Robert Friebert, the Wisconsin counsel for the Obama for President campaign filed a brief to allow the Democratic Party of Wisconsin to intervene in the case. The Democrats have a lot at stake in seeing that voters not be disenfranchised, especially since the overwhelming majority of new registrants vote for democrats. [080917.dems intervene.pdf]
For his part, Van Hollen issued an opinion column on the subject. In it he mentioned "recent newspaper reports of fraudulent registrations" in Milwaukee as proof that votes are cast illegally here. In fact, there were no "fraudulent registrations" in the city -- the election commission caught the alleged fraudulent registrations before they were entered onto the voting rolls. The system works just fine as it is.

ARE YOU REGISTERED IN MORE THAN ONE COMMUNITY?

It turns out I am. Twenty-seven elections after moving back to Milwaukee in 2000 and registering to vote here, I've discovered that I also remain an active, registered voter in the City of Mequon, where I lived from 1998-1999. The voter registration card I filled out in Milwaukee had a place for me to identify my previous voting address, (which I did) and I simply assumed that my name would be automatically purged in the fullness of time. As it turns out, it was not, despite the much vaunted cleansing of Wisconsin's polling lists and the integration of state-issued identification data with voting records.
I was able to find this information using a nifty feature on the State of Wisconsin Government Accountability website.
It's called Voter Public Access, and you can check out anybody's voting status if you know his or her name and date of birth. You can also check your voting record, although that information can be spotty -- my Milwaukee history is complete, while the Mequon one is empty, although I am a chronic voter.
It took me only a few minutes to find a couple of public servants who are listed with multiple voting addresses -- Rep. Jon Richards and Rep. Tamara Grigsby both show Milwaukee and Madison registrations. However, in both instances, the Madison registrations are listed as "inactive," rather than "active," as was my situation.
I don't see much case for the allegations of voter fraud, where folks actually work at and conspire to get registered in two or more places. In my case the government did it for me. According to Election Commission Executive Director Sue Edman, who is straightening out things for me, there was a one digit discrepancy between my Mequon Social Security number and the one in Milwaukee. (Mequon got it wrong; but it just goes to show you how common clerical errors can be, and what a disaster we would face if Van Hollen's hardline proposals were to take effect.)
In a sidelight, I was one of the voters who received a John McCain absentee ballot -- at the Mequon address, but not at the Milwaukee address. Curious. Whose mailing list is he using?
--Michael Horne