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Taking Volunteers to Check the Rolls

This is the story from today:

Van Hollen sued the state Government Accountability Board Wednesday, saying it must crosscheck voter names with driver’s license records for voters who registered to vote or changed their addresses on or after Jan. 1, 2006.
Such checks were required under federal law as of that date, but the board didn’t start performing them until last month because of technical problems.

Nat Robinson, the board’s elections administrator, said the board’s reading of the suit is that the attorney general is asking local clerks to check the names of everyone who filed registration papers on or after Jan. 1, 2006 - more than 1 million people.

Department of Justice officials have said they want election officials to check only the names of those who filed paperwork by mail or with special registration deputies that work for volunteer groups. That would affect about 241,000 voters.

Per a suggestion by commenter, Steve Austin, I am hereby calling for volunteers to help the County Clerks check the rolls. 

I’ll start.  I’m willing to volunteer to spend time checking the rolls in Washington County. 

If you are willing to help your county, please indicate so in the comments of this post.  Also, please indicate your county.  I will help put each of you in contact with your County Clerk, if you haven’t done so already.  Let’s not let the lack of manpower be a reason for not doing this important work. 

Note: I believe that the voter rolls are actually maintained by the municipalities, but the County Clerks will get you to the right people. 

Posted by Owen at 1830 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

1. I’ll volunteer a day to help out in Winnebago County!

   Posted by Nate on September 11, 2008 at 1837 hrs




2. I’m in Ozaukee County, but it sounds like Milwaukee County may have the most names and need the most help.  What I’d suggest is that you get all of our names down and then we/you approach the County clerks as one entity rather than have us all call individually.  We need to make this offer in a clear coordinated way with one public spokesman (and of course we nominate you for the job!)

   And if people are concerned about this being somehow a partisan affair, then let’s have each volunteer get matched up with someone of a different political persuasion.  Sort of like a poll watcher concept or when the State of Florida counted the chads and they had a democrat and a republican each verify the information. 

   Of course anyone who has done any remedial computer programming in their life realizes that it should be easy to simply cross check the voter database files with the drivers license database by simply matching about 5-7 key fields (name, address, DOB, etc).  A good computer programming should be able to do this in about 7-days max time and then come up with a list of the ones that have discrepancies to then be hand checked.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 11, 2008 at 1901 hrs




3. Great ideas.  This is totally non-partisan.  All anyone wants here is a clean election.  Will our lefty readers volunteer too?

   Posted by Owen on September 11, 2008 at 1903 hrs




4. Here is a list (with email addresses) of the members of the Wisconsin County Clerks Association

   http://www.co.rock.wi.us/Dept/countyclerk/Documents/WCCA County Clerks.pdf

   Maybe one of them is the President or Secretary and would have all of these emails as a “group”.

   I did not find a link to an Association website, but this document is Rock County, so maybe that Clerk is the Secretary or President.  If I find more info, will update.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 11, 2008 at 1913 hrs




5. I am certainly willing to volunteer in Waukesha County.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 11, 2008 at 1919 hrs




6. Owen, does Van Hollen have the ability to break down the newly registered voters by County or City?  That would help us figure this out and who needs the most help.

   I noticed tonight that the MJS is now blasting the number to be “OVER ONE MILLION” in some sort of effort to claim the task is just too hard.

   I’d like to know the breakdown by County and City and let’s concentrate the resources where most needed.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 11, 2008 at 1919 hrs




7. I don’t know.  Most of it is focused in rural areas, I would think.  The reason for just checking people who registered after Jan. 1, 2006, is that people in most townships didn’t have to register to vote prior to then.  The bad news is that they are scattered out.  The good news is that each list should be pretty short.

   Posted by Owen on September 11, 2008 at 1923 hrs




8. I’ll help in Milwaukee County (which sounds like a full-time job).

   Posted by steveegg on September 11, 2008 at 1953 hrs




9. Great idea folks.

   But if you go out and read the 2003 Wisc. Act 265 (incorporating Help America Vote Act) online you’ll find that it says:

   The Act provides that the list must be open to public inspection under Wisconsin’s Open Records Law and must be electronically accessible to any person. However, no person other than an employee of the Elections Board, a municipal clerk, a deputy clerk, or an executive director or deputy of a city board of election commissioners may view any of the following information from the list:
   1. The date of birth of an elector.
   2. The elector’s registration identification number.
   3. The elector’s operator’s license number or portion of his or her Social Security account number.
   4. The address of an elector to whom an identification serial number has been issued because the elector is a victim of domestic abuse.
   5. An indication of an accommodation required to enable a disabled elector to vote.

   In addition, no person other than an employee of the Elections Board, a municipal clerk, or an election official who is authorized by a municipal clerk, may make a change in the list.

   I have a feeling that allowing volunteers to start making updates to the voter database might raise even more hullaballoo than leaving it be.  But hyou can always offer.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 11, 2008 at 1958 hrs




10. Thanks for the heads up, Dory.

    I wonder if they can “deputize” volunteers, or even if volunteers can do menial work like carting the files around.  Anything to make it happen. 

    I’ll try to call our clerk tomorrow and see what can be done.

    Posted by Owen on September 11, 2008 at 2001 hrs




11. I agree with Owen. People could be deputized or do menial tasks relating to this.

    Additionally, would there be some computer programmers or companies that would be willing to make a civic “donation” to take a shot at doing this via computer?  I’d donate to a non partisan fund to engage a computer specialist to do the programming.  Again, this just doesn’t seem that hard. 

    Let’s see what city’s and county’s this comprises.  That will tell us where the resources are needed and where the pressure needs to be applied. 

    I’m really struggling to see how a State of 5.7 million people who are generally stable and non transient have somehow created one million new voter registrations in just the last 2 years.  The list breakdown of this would be really helpful.  Are these all kids in Madison moving around to different dorms and apartments or the result of new voters in Milwaukee and such.  It will be interesting to compare the number of registered voters in Milwaukee with these new additions for example with what the census bureau pegs the population of voting age people at.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 11, 2008 at 2010 hrs




12. ...it should be easy to simply cross check the voter database files with the drivers license database by simply matching about 5-7 key fields (name, address, DOB, etc). 

    I should add that it appears that the DOT data is not actually available as a queryable table.  The request for a match is submitted in a batch job by the clerk on a Citrix server, sent to the DOT, they check it against their data and send back a response record a day or two later.  So you would not be able to do that simple query directly.  I’m assuming that the DOT objected to having their data “out there” for anyone but law enforcement to view.  Privacy issues.  Turf issues.  Who knows.  Makes it tough to do this efficiently.  But I’m sure they had reasons.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 11, 2008 at 2011 hrs




13. Another possible data source to check is municipal and county tax rolls.  Every piece of property is assigned to someone.

    This will not help with apartments and duplexes, but it will help for single family homes and non-existent address.

    If you cannot find an address from the municipal voter roll on the municipal tax roll, then that address is suspicious and needs more investigation.

    Same for if the voter rolls list the RESIDENCE of the voter at an address the tax roll lists as COMMERCIAL or agricultural.  If this is the case then the address is suspicious.

    
    Both the address on the voter rolls and the address on the tax rolls are public records.  Tedious to check, but with enough manpower it is possible to check many addresses.  No need to wait for the DOT to co-operate

    Posted by John Washburn on September 11, 2008 at 2032 hrs




14. I’m in for Waukesha COunty

    Posted by dad29 on September 11, 2008 at 2152 hrs




15. Me!  Pick ME!

    Washington County

    Posted by GAMazy on September 12, 2008 at 0517 hrs




16. Owen, after sleeping on the idea, maybe you should coordinate this with Sykes.  Find out what this entails, if possible and have Charlie’s producer collect names next week on his show.  Charlie can do it as a morning topic. 

    I truly think a 200 person volunteer force could be put together within a few days for the cities in Southeastern Wisconsin.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 12, 2008 at 0744 hrs




17. I’d be interested in helping in Brown Co.

    Posted by hsgbdmama on September 12, 2008 at 1239 hrs




18. I put my two cents’ worth in here and will be more than willing to help out in Racine County.

    Posted by Peter on September 12, 2008 at 1423 hrs




19. maybe you should coordinate this with Sykes.  Find out what this entails, if possible and have Charlie’s producer collect names next week on his show.  Charlie can do it as a morning topic.

    I agree with this. Ask all the local talkers if they’d be willing to help out. That would really make the lefties’ heads explode as well.

    Posted by Peter on September 12, 2008 at 1425 hrs




20. Yes, Peter, I think allowing conservative talk show hosts to stick their fingers in the voter registration database would definitely make some heads explode. 

    You should not be surprised if the town clerks, the GAB and State Elections Board say “Thanks but no thanks” to any volunteer that thinks it would be fantastic to cause “lefties heads to explode.”

    The stated goal of the lawsuit was supposed to be to make sure that the identities of registered voters since Jan 2006 were verified.  But there’s another issue here.  If the matching was accomplished (by some miracle) it would cause ~22% of these new voters to be kicked back off the rolls (or setting their status to UNCONFIRMED requiring ID at the polls). 

    There is a little risk of voter fraud if the voter database is not matched against the DOT records.  It just means that driver’s licences don’t match voter records to the letter—that’s all it will tell us.  The cost of doing that, the confusion and delays that result on voting day and the extra work load created for town clerks hardly seems worth it—unless you really just want to see some heads explode.

    Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on September 12, 2008 at 1931 hrs




21. If the matching was accomplished (by some miracle) it would cause ~22% of these new voters to be kicked back off the rolls (or setting their status to UNCONFIRMED requiring ID at the polls). 

    That’s not quite true.  The AG has asked that dead people and felons be purged automatically, but asked the GAB to determine who else would be kicked off the rolls.  The number kicked off would be FAR lass than 22%.

    In any case, even if it was 22%, what’s wrong with that?  The list is obviously a mess and needs to be cleaned.  It would inconvenience very few people to have to present an ID and re-register at the polls.  The vast majority of people carry ID anyway.  And the few who don’t can cast a provisional ballot. 

    Frankly, I think that inconveniencing a few people is a price worth paying to help secure our election system.

    Posted by Owen on September 12, 2008 at 1947 hrs




22. Frankly, I think that inconveniencing a few people is a price worth paying to help secure our election system.

    I completely agree with this statement.  If people wanted to cash checks or buy booze, they would gladly present their ID’s.  Why can’t they be held accountable at the polls. 

    I think they’ll live.

    Posted by GAMazy on September 12, 2008 at 1952 hrs

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