Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News.
Once again Wisconsin finds itself in a heated legal battle over a common sense law because of the insistence of liberals that they be able to cheat in our elections. The latest skirmish comes over the routine business of cleaning up our voter rolls.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission was formed in 2016 after the monstrously corrupt Government Accountability Board was dismantled. The WEC is charged with administering and enforcing election laws in the state. The WEC does not make law. It is charged with administering and enforcing laws.
One of those administration tasks is to maintain the state’s voter rolls. Every Wisconsin voter registers in their local district to ensure that the people in a particular district, municipality, county, etc. are electing their government. It is a cornerstone of representative government that the elected leaders are elected by people who actually live in the area to be governed. It is critically important that these voter rolls are accurate for selfgovernance to be a reality. If people from Chicago, for example, can drive up to Racine and cast a vote, then the good people of Racine are being denied self-governance.
One of the mechanisms that the state uses to maintain the voter rolls is participation in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which is a coalition of 28 states and Washington, D.C. that monitors people’s movement. For example, if someone moves from Hudson, Wisconsin, to Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and gets a new driver’s license, the state of Minnesota would update the ERIC system. However, that person is still on the voting rolls in Hudson unless someone removes them.
In order to keep the voter rolls accurate, the state passed a law that requires the WEC to send notices to anyone who ERIC indicates moved within or without of the state to verify where the person actually lives. If they moved or if the person does not respond, then the WEC is directed to remove the person’s name from the voting rolls within 30 days and invite the person to reregister to vote in the correct precinct on or before the next date they want to vote.
This is truly a sensible, routine, administrative function that should not be controversial. There is absolutely no hardship on anyone here. The worst case is that someone might be accidentally removed from the voting rolls, but can reregister when they go to vote next time. Wisconsin has same day voting registration and requires a photo identification to vote. Being accidentally removed from the voting rolls might cause a minor inconvenience for a few people who have to reregister, but the benefit is that hundreds of thousands of incorrect voter registrations are removed, thus lessening the opportunity for election fraud.
In October, the WEC sent out about 234,000 of these confirmation notices, of which only 18,800 responded. By law, the WEC is supposed to use that information to update the voting rolls. The WEC refused, so the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty sued them in state court to make them follow the law. A state court judge ordered them to follow the law. The WEC commissioners — specifically the three Democrat commissioners — refused to follow the court order. The decision is being appealed in state court by the liberal Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and the liberal activist group the League of Women Voters is suing in federal court, but the court’s order still stands and the WEC is still refusing to comply with the law.
This is how our republic crumbles. Our government institutions refuse to comply with the will of the people or the law of the land. Our elections are undermined by the willful manipulation of bureaucrats and activists bent on their own agendas. We allow swamp creatures who supplant their will for the will of the people to hold dominion over us.
Wisconsin could be the deciding state in the next presidential election and that the election could be decided by a handful of votes. That is why the leftists are driven to undermine our electoral process any way they can to open up opportunities to cheat. That is why this exceedingly routine effort to maintain accurate voting rolls is being fought so vigorously. That is why we must insist that our government abide by the will of the people and follow the law.
The only way the Democrats will win in 2020 is by cheating, especially in swing House seats.
Mar, you believe Dems cheat, but you think there’s something about Republicans that would make them not eager to cheat?
So Owen – if I register a vehicle at my business address, have I moved? Isn’t the question at hand whether the secondary hints are truly reliable?
All you have to do, Jiffster, is take that vehicle to your county courthouse. Exit the vehicle and find your Voting Registration office. Make sure you are still on the books, OR re-register.
Admittedly, the 250,000 students, migrants, and fake-voters will have to re-register wherever they currently live—or not.
Gee, that’s hard to do.
Heaven knows your empathy gland is two sizes too small, but there’s always hope it could grow and you could imagine people in straits less cushy than yours where “driving to the courthouse” when it’s open is indeed a burden. Or the DMV. Or both, depending on whether they think your papers are in order.
It takes a certain kind of fear-based imagination, I think, to imagine there are 250,000 false voters out there. It’s hard enough getting twenty people to show up at anything these days, much less coordinating them remotely and completely silently and without detection by the opposition. I find it far more easy to imagine wholesale fraud happening at other levels, like gerrymandering, like hacked voting machines, like hacked servers at the election office.
Or even easier still, deliberate tweaking like this that is certain to affect certain kinds of voters. It’s like a modern-day literacy test. Oh, you can’t afford to jump through hoops at the DMV and courthouse? Can’t take a morning off? Too bad, so sad.
jjf,
If they can’tdo that,they probably are not residents, or citizens, and should not vote anyway.
Every vote by a non-resident,or non citizen is a vote stolen from rest of us.
Valid Photo ID and show up on election day is all that is required. You don’t even have to show up on election day, you can pre-vote as absentee if you want.
I don’t want bus loads of Democrats being shipped in from out of state assuming these outdated registration entries. If they are valid voters, re-registration is not that hard.
No one claimed that ‘there are 250K false voters out there.’ But there are 240K+ which did not respond to the letter-inquiry.
One more thing: “gerrymandering” is perfectly legal, in case you’re not keeping up with the news from the Federal Courts.
JJF, it looks like you misread the article as it says this is triggered by a change of your drivers license address, not your vehicle registration.
This is is a multi-part process, if you were to be flagged for some reason without actually moving the WEC would be notified and send an in inquiry by mail to your current voting address. You would have to ignore that to be removed from the rolls.
We still have voter ID so you should have an ID with your current address, making re-registration at the polls easy, unless you ignored the rules about updating change of address for state ID and DLs when you first moved to your current address.
Any address move requires you to register at your new address anyway.
“Not that hard.” The literacy test isn’t that hard. Only property owners should be able to vote!
Yeah, we’ve heard it all before. Sounds like your empathy gland is malfunctioning. Can’t imagine why throwing up a series of obstacles to voters would discourage voting, and in the words of Prof. Shh ‘n Shh who brought the suit, I bet you never even considered the political implications of the purge.
Imagine the legislature taking action that could make it easier for people to vote, to encourage voting.
Mike, here’s another article that says:
Of course, jjf, does not believe in fair elections based in his first response where he says that Democrats should cheat because the ends justify the means.
If course, not returning the letter is such a burden that they could not give letter sent by the WEC to the letter carrier.
No one is being inconvenienced except the lazy or fraudsters.
Dad29, you said “250,000 students, migrants, and fake-voters”. Care to give your spitball breakdown so I’m less confused? 99% students or 99% fake-voters? Or is that just your knowing wink and eyebrow-raise that you give after the unexplained dog-whistles like this?
Here’s a Republican appointee explaining his view:
Jjf,
To compare photo ID to literacy test and property ownership is absurd. Those racist ballot requirements were all by Democrats BTW.
I suggest you leave the racism of your heinous party in the past.
I don’t want someone walking into polls claiming they are me and taking my vote!
Anyone can get an ID same day. Register same day.
Mar, you’re projecting, I think. You said Dems cheat. I asked why you think Republicans don’t cheat. You didn’t answer.
I even gave examples of what I thought were more probable and effective methods of vote fraud and suppression. Suppression is effective. We have such a small fraction of our population who even bothers to vote. Imagine what would happen if more of the population voted.
No, I don’t think the ends justify the means. Never said anything close to that. Nor did I say that Dems should cheat. Where are you getting this stuff?
Here we go again. Kevin’s Spin On History and Racism.
What’s wrong with the literacy test, Kevin? What’s wrong with anything that makes it more difficult to vote?
jjf,
You brought it up. Who controlled the South when these poll test were being put in? Democrats. The 1924 democrat convention was a literal KKK clam bake. Learn some history, you might learn something besides liberal revisionist history.
Are you against racism, Kevin, or are you more concerned with party labels from 150 years ago?
What’s wrong with the literacy test, Kevin? What’s wrong with anything that makes it more difficult to vote?
Well, Jiffy, if you want a literacy test, just send a letter to Maggie Gau. Don’t bother Tony; he leaves his office at 1PM and doesn’t have time for “work.”
Dad29, is he out golfing?
jjf, there have been Republicans who have cheated,individually.
The Democrats, as a a group and policy encourage cheating during elections. Policies such as opposing voter ID, cleaning up election rolls, Chicago.
“The Democrats, as a a group and policy encourage cheating during elections”.
Utter and absolute nonsense.
Le Roi, who can forget all those Republican efforts to insure that all legal voters are registered and get a good free photo ID, to prevent cheating?
And then there’s that special funding to help the people whose odd circumstances of birth or name change meant they fell through the cracks and needed extra help to insure their ID was sufficient?
And all the ways they went the extra mile to insure that students had a clear way to vote? Remember that?
Jiffy,
Democrats are the party of evil that advocates those things.
Blame your tribe. Your tribe has a problem judging people in things other than skin color.
So happens I knew a Democrat who worked for Big City to the East–the one that dumps raw sewage into Lake Michigan. We were joshing back and forth about voting integrity when he looked at me and said “So what’s another few votes here and there?”
It’s the way they’ve operated since forever.
Who can forget the roastie-toastie and special necktie parties thrown by the Democrat Party’s enforcement division, the KKK? Talk about voter suppression…..and by the way, the KKK was still operating in Indiana during the early 1970’s, albeit they wore Sheriff’s uniforms, not sheets.
He Who Speaks In Mysteries.
Can you imagine that racism is not correlated with party?
No doubt about it. Racism happens to be correlated with race.
jjf must be imitating Elizabeth Warren again.
So,jjf, show me where the GOP policies are racist? Plenty of Democrat evidence, but GOP policies?
jjf,
Racism is largely correlated with the Democrat Party because the Party has always judged people on skin color to prioritize one race over another. Ther prioritized races can vary,but Democrats have nearly always embraced racist policies.
“Racism is largely correlated with the Democrat Party because the Party has always judged people on skin color to prioritize one race over another”.
Yet another example of absolute and utter nonsense.
I see the commission deadlocked on their vote to remove the names so they will not remove the names. I think the judge should rule them in contempt of court and jail the commissioners until the court ruling is obeyed.
Nope. K’s correct. The Democrats patented the ‘race-class-sex’ micro-marketing schemes which have become prominent in their campaigns since about 1968, with the idea of dividing the nation against itself.
Hasn’t completely succeeded and I suspect that Trump is the beginning of the unification-scheme New Politics.
dud:
You mean like the R’s “Southern Strategy” of the 6o-70’s? It didn’t work for Goldwater, but sure did for Nixon.
You mean really terrible stuff like this?
“Bring us together again.” “Working class Americans” No more war (how many blacks want MORE war, jingo?
The platform was designed with the idea that Southerners were voting (D) by habit, not by reason. And lookkee there!!
Same thing coming in November, sonny.
Oh, yah, the cite: the notorious Bircher History Channel
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/richard-nixon-elected-president
Nu, this one may better reflect how it was back then:
“In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans. (Boyd, J. 1970; Branch, T., 1999) As the civil rights movement and dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s visibly deepened existing racial tensions in much of the Southern United States, Republican politicians such as presidential candidate Richard Nixon and Senator Barry Goldwater developed strategies that successfully contributed to the political realignment of many white, conservative voters in the South who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party. It also helped to push the Republican Party much more to the right.(Apple, R.W. 1996)