Van Hollen's lawsuit will muck up election, voting officials say

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By Steven Elbow

A lawsuit filed by the state attorney general Wednesday has the potential to slow down voting lines in what promises to be a staggering turnout for the Nov. 4 election, local voting officials said.

"It will disenfranchise voters. That's what we're concerned about," City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl said.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, filed the lawsuit Monday in Dane County Circuit Court to get ineligible voters off the rolls. It calls for a court order mandating the Government Accountability Board to cross-check voters who have registered since Jan. 1, 2006, when federal Help America Vote Act legislation required that states implement a voter database to cross-check voter registrations with Department of Transportation, criminal and death records.

"We're working on plans to make sure we don't have long lines at the polls, make sure that the lines can move smoothly and quickly," Witzel-Behl said. "If we throw this into the mix, then it is going to slow things down."

The GAB didn't have the voter registration system up and running until Aug. 6 of this year and has said it will cross-check from that date on. Van Hollen said that to comply with federal law, the state has to go back to the federal deadline.

Van Hollen spokesman Kevin St. John said Van Hollen wants the GAB to verify voters who registered by mail since Jan. 1, 2006, because they didn't have to show an ID.

In a written response, Government Accountability Board Director Kevin Kennedy said the board is committed to preventing voter fraud, but Van Hollen's demands are too much, too soon.

"The board believes it would be counter-productive to rush this effort and to create a significant risk, at best of unnecessary hardship and confusion at the polls, and at worst the disenfranchisement of Wisconsin citizens with a clear and legitimate right to vote," he said.

If a judge rules in Van Hollen's favor, Witzel-Behl said city staffers would have to check 3,612 voters who registered by mail since the beginning of 2006. They have already processed 1,256 registrations that have been filed since the statewide database went online last month and have sent 100 letters to voters whose information didn't match and got 37 responses. The discrepancies typically come from names that are written differently on voter registration forms than on driver's licenses or driver's license numbers that are wrong or illegible.

"A lot of it is us trying to decipher their penmanship," she said.

Witzel-Behl said if Van Hollen's lawsuit prevails, the city will have to send letter to voters whose registrations are questioned, which the GAB has found to be more than 20 percent. The voters will have to clear up the discrepancies, and then the city has to run the information through another check.

And as the election approaches, the phones at clerks' offices get busier, so people calling back to resolve discrepancies will be less likely to get through.

"The closer we get to the election, the less time we have to clear things up," Witzel-Behl said.

Diane Hermann-Brown, Sun Prairie city clerk, said the court needs to act quickly if it wants counties and municipalities to comply.

"I don't think he's wrong on what he's doing," she said of Van Hollen. "It probably needs to get done. It just should have been done sooner."

A status conference on Van Hollen's lawsuit is set before Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi on Sept. 19.

"That only gives us 2 1/2 weeks before we run our poll books," Hermann-Brown said. "That's not enough time."

If the court sides with Van Hollen, clerks are concerned voters who do not resolve the discrepancies will have to re-register at the polling place, leaving those behind them to wait.

"I think we're expecting all eligible voters to appear on election day, and a lot of those have not yet registered," said Linda Cory, Fitchburg city clerk. "So in addition to that we would have to verify the ones prior. It's going to cause a lot of work. If that goes through, we'll have to staff extra people."

Witzel-Behl said the net effect of the lawsuit, if it is successful, will be to discourage people from voting.

"It's going to slow down the lines," she said. "And it will not only affect the people who have been flagged in the poll book, but the people who are standing behind that individual who have all come to the polls to vote."

She said people might avoid Election Day problems by checking their own registration status at http://vpa.wi.gov.

Election politics: Van Hollen's move has elicited howls from Democratic officials and progressive activists because many believe the people most likely to be flagged by the voter database will vote Democratic, in part because Democratic-aligned groups have done the lion's share of voter registration.

State Democratic Chairman Joe Wineke said Van Hollen is "trying to distract and deny voters with fear-mongering."

"This ploy by the Republican attorney general is nothing more than a waste of taxpayer dollars and a cynical attempt to disenfranchise eligible voters less than two months before the November election," he said in a press release.

The Progressive group One Wisconsin Now called on Van Hollen to recuse himself from any legal action connected to the general election because his role as GOP presidential candidate John McCain's statewide campaign co-chair constitutes a clear conflict of interest.

"McCain talks about country first," said Scot Ross, the group's executive director. "Van Hollen practices party first."

St. John, Van Hollen's spokesman, said Van Hollen sees no conflict.

"None of the critics had explained how or why compliance with federal and state election laws favors one party over another," he said. "Fair elections is not a partisan issue."

State Republicans -- harking back to August's investigation of several Milwaukee area voter registration workers caught falsifying registration cards while working for liberal groups -- praised Van Hollen's move.

"Van Hollen today lived up to an important campaign promise by standing up against the GAB to combat voter fraud," Reince Priebus, chairman of the state Republican Party, said in a press statement. "With voter fraud occurring earlier than ever this year, it was time to take real action and hold the GAB accountable."