John Washburn has been doing yeoman’s work in trying to figure that out. After 2 years of lies from the Milwaukee Election Commission on the legal status of the records of the November 2004 election, some of those records have been released, others destroyed, and those that have been released are quite disturbing:
– In Ward 1, there were a pair of major problems. None of the three measures of the number of ballots cast (the machine total, the poll book certification page, and the cover page for the inspectors’ report) match, with the machine total and thus, presumably, the ballot bag, stuffed with 148 balllots not recorded in the poll book and 238 ballots not accounted for in the inspectors’ report. The inspectors’ report (filled out in duplicate) was “certified” by “three” individuals using false names, and signing with the same handwriting, handwriting that appears nowhere in the poll book.
– A further review of wards 1-100 revealed a rather lengthy list of irregularities including:
- Over 1,300 more ballots recorded as processed by the voting machines on the machine tapes than recorded in the poll books
- 12 wards that had no numbers recorded in the poll book
- 68 wards that had no inspectors’ report at all
- 12 wards that had no numbers recorded in the inspectors’ report
- 13 wards that did not have a discrepancy between the machine tape and the poll book, including only 1 ward that also had the identical number on the inspectors’ report
State law requires that the number of ballots cast be recorded in the poll book, and that number matches the machine tape total.
– John has a written assurance that, unlike 2004, the city properly recorded the 2006 elections. They might be interested in the video he took of the post-voting canvass of Wards 259, 260 and 265 in the fall 2006 primary election. Doesn’t exactly look like proper recording of the election to me.
Paging Mr. Van Hollen. Paging Wisconsin Attorney General JB Van Hollen. Seeing everybody else, from former Milwaukee County DA E. Michael McCann to US Attorney Steve Biskupic to current Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm (who was one of McCann’s top deputies until last year), dropped the ball, it’s up to you to clean up Milwaukee’s elections.
Suggestion for whoever the Pubbie nominee for President is next year; demand a recount in Wisconsin.
So it’s not merely a matter of screwing up the absentee ballot entries.
I particularly like the really professional “Inspector signature” thing.
Wonder if they purchased the signatures from an ACORN voter-list.