More Shenanigans In Milwaukee?

After the 2004 election, widespread claims of voter fraud arose from the close election results in our neighboring state of Wisconsin. At the time, the claims focused on the lax voter registration laws in Wisconsin that apparently allowed for massive overvoting in the critical precincts of Milwaukee. Over 4500 ballots got cast over the number of ballots that Milwaukee recorded as voting in that election, calling into question the reliability of the razor-thin margin of victory by John Kerry of 11,000 votes overall.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel did an excellent job of reporting the shenanigans in 2005, leading to an investigation that ended up going nowhere. The county, state, and federal governments could reach no real conclusion as to the existence of fraud, despite the obvious imbalance in votes versus the records. Now a blogger on the Left has discovered what three levels of government investigators could not (via Memeorandum):

The Optech IIIP Eagle optical scanner claims it scanned 1219 ballots. On the poll book certification page, the poll workers checking in voters and handing out blank ballots claim they handed 1071 ballots to electors. On the Inspectors’ reports with the forged signatures, it is claimed only 981 ballots were handed to electors. If I believe the machine and the poll book, then the ballot box in Ward One was stuffed with 148 extra ballots. If I believe the machine and the apparently forged inspectors’ report, the ballot box is stuffed with 238 extra ballots. If I ignore the machine altogether, the ballot box is stuffed with 90 extra ballots.
This leads to several questions.
1. How many ballots are currently sealed in the ballot bag for Ward One; 1219 ballots, 1071 ballots, 981 ballots, or some other number of ballots? Has anyone checked? Ever?
2. How is it that this anomaly was never discovered after two years of “investigation” by the Joint Task Force of the FBI, Milwaukee Police department, the Milwaukee county District Attorney and the US Attorney for Eastern Wisconsin? What have US Attorney Biskupic and the County District Attorneys E. Michael McCann and John Chisholm been doing for two years if such clear statute violations were missed?

John Washburn, guest-blogging at Brad’s Blog, has more questions about the implications of this discovery, but there are more still. It took months for Washburn to receive the materials from a FOIA request; he got stalled by excuses of materials transfers between agencies. Now that Washburn has the materials, it hardly seems credible that the joint investigation could reasonably shrug off the complaints. The election inspectors signed their names as “Jane Smith”, “Judy Doe”, and “John Doe”, and as mentioned before, the numbers are quite a bit off from the optical-scan machines, which should be highly accurate.
John asks who benefits from the apparent ballot-stuffing in this one ward. Given that Milwaukee has a strong Democratic registration advantage and that the electoral mechanics in that county are controlled by Democrats, I’d find it extremely unlikely that it represents a Republican conspiracy. Democrats needed a wide margin of victory for Kerry in Milwaukee to overcome the advantage Republicans have in most of the rest of the state — and it seems as though some people were determined to maximize that margin through any means necessary.
However, no one can prove this, because we rightly do not match ballots to names. We rely on strict accounting to ensure a fair election with fair results. Regardless of who tried to game the system, all citizens should be demanding a new investigation into Milwaukee’s 2004 election, who ran it, and most importantly who corrupted it. After that, we need to find out why the last investigation failed to proceed with charges against the officials in this ward that falsified the controls.
John says that “it is the duty of sovereign citizens to watch public officials vigilantly and eternally.” He’s right.

20 thoughts on “More Shenanigans In Milwaukee?”

  1. And yet, in Seattle, home of perfect election integrity “that a bank would envy,” the D’s machine is forcing through 100% mail balloting. Where a dog was registered to vote. And received ballots _after_ election’s officials knew it was a dog.
    The head of mail-in-balloting admitted _under_oath_ that she had falsified the reconcilliation report , and yet this is deemed _more_ secure than what we’ve got.

  2. Thanks for picking up on this funny business in Milwaukee.
    I’ve been wondering where the rest of the bloggers and the MSM have been.
    Important story whether Dem or Rep.

  3. If memory serves me correctly, Republicans challenged the Election Board before the election when they had ordered more blank ballots than voting age adults in Milwaukee according to census figures. They lost.
    Also, Wisconsin allows election day registration, with only a member of the community vouching that the registrant lives in the district. There were rumors that Chicago (Illinois) area voters were bussed to the polls and allowed to register.
    I never heard whether the actual voters exceded the voting age population. It’s worth checking. Also, this is where the Democrat mayor’s son and several accomplices slashed tires of Republican vans that were to transport voters. They were convicted.
    Milwaukee is horribly corrupt and it is likely the state went Democrat as a result of Milwaukee’s chicanery.

  4. How about a national standard for Presidential elections? Let each state run their own state and local elections as they want, but have stricter registration and identification standards for the big dance.
    Of course, this will be derided by those who profit from fixing elections, all the way from Tammany Hall to dead voters in Chicago…the same people who refuse to support a national or state voter ID card, even when it would be provided at no cost to the recipient.
    BTW, don’t all of the above examples have a “D” after their name? I’m shocked! Shocked, I say!

  5. My wife and I work as polling place troubleshooters and work in the canvas of the poll ballots/ signatures after the election in King County -Seattle.
    I have never seen a discrepancy of more than 2 between the optical scanner, the signature log and the actual hand count of the ballots. We spend hours trying to find the problem if our counts are off by 1 vote!!!
    ps: I am distinctly in the political minority here in Seattle.
    That said, I’m very concerned about lax registration and now the move to all mail balloting. Also, there is too much trust in the new electronic voting machines required to be in every poll. Yes, we have a paper trail, and physical security on the machines, but who knows about the programing and the data base.

  6. Here in Florida, we found that many northeners who own property down here or were seasonal residents had registered to vote in Florida AS WELL as in their home states. The greatest numbers offenders were from Democrat-heavy New York.
    Absentee ballots were always sent to them without fail.

  7. In 2004, Hugh Hewitt was right. He wrote a book telling Americans that they had to vote in high enough numbers, or the creeps would steal the election from them.
    I don’t think the system will get any “more” honest up ahead, either. Let alone how INEFFICENT the FBI, and other agencies, are, in these sorts of things.
    Yes, it’s a disgrace.
    But, today, there was a Mark Steyn article about the whole fabricated system that is tossing out American jurisprudence. And, giving the laws over to prosecutors, who can prosecute just about any which way they want.
    Given the clowns in DC, I doubt we’re gonna get things fixed any time soon.
    But it hasn’t escaped notice, that these days, lots of republicans are looking at candidates to see who has the bes chance to win.
    Winning can only be achieved when voter turnout is high.
    As to the “clowns” in towns like Milwaukee, all they’re gonna invite are “stuffers” from the other side. Where there’s a majority of voters. And, it will be done to cancel out the thieves who’ve lost the hearts and minds of the American people.
    Algore was bad enough. But John Kerry? He doesn’t even make it in my book as a gigolo. Theresa must be blind and/or desperate to accept this loser. She has a purse full of money. She could’a done better.
    At least he’s not in the White House.
    Nor, does it look, ahead, that McCain has a chance of getting there. And, while this sounds “off topic,” today Newt Gingrich said McCain won’t get out of the race until the FEC money comes his way. Which, in my book, is also a form of cheating.

  8. An addition to Al’s comments regarding Seattle: there was enough vote fraud in the last election that, legally speaking, Washington has no governor.

  9. Until voters are required to positively identify themselves before voting, this country is carrying it’s democracy in a paper bag.

  10. Gore only won Wisconsin by 5000 votes in 2000 & the state overreported from Madison & Beertown that year also. In the Cheesehead la-la-lotus-land, the solid Repubs are constantly cheated by the Students at UW and the black wards in Milwaukee. Lived there for two decades and the place reeks.

  11. I can understand the difference between the number of scanned ballots and the higher number of ballots that were issued as reported by the precinct judges (poll workers) as there are invariably a number of “spoiled” ballots in any election.
    I live in Minneapolis, which also uses optical scan ballots, and I have personally witnessed spoiled ballots (where someone has voted for more than one candidate for the same office, as an example) so I believe the higher number of issued ballots that the precinct judges reported is the correct number.
    Precinct judges take a careful count of the number of ballots they issue. Optical scan machines will reject a spoiled ballot when encountered and the precinct judge will mark that ballot as such and issue another ballot to that voter, thus increasing the number of issued ballots with out increasing the number of ballots that the scanner records. Since the Inspector’s report contains forged signatures I would suspect that the number of issued ballots as stated in that report is false.
    It is possible that a number of recorded ballots were invalidated and not added to the official count. There are various reasons for this but a forged report would suggest that a number of valid ballots were removed illegally.
    The citizen of Wisconsin should demand a full accounting of the forged report and any possible illegal removal of ballots.

  12. Yes, of course, the cretinous FBI could no more connect the dots on this obvious voter fraud than they could with 9/11. Why should we be surprised that an ordinary citizen could readily detect, in the available stats, the clear fraud missed by our pathetic national police force? It was ordinary citizens who went to the FBI bozos to report the blatant, totally bizarre behavior of Middle Eastern, wild-eyed “flight student” crazies before 9/11, and were ignored by the senior FBI management (all of whom should have been immediately terminated). However, one can understand this latest FBI failure in light of their having to spend significant, and always scarce federal resources, on the serious federal crime of dog fighting. On the other hand, the FBI will get their name in the paper and, maybe, an award from the SPCA. Wonderful, just wonderful! Please support your local FBI dog friendly guy (or gal). Don’t inquire about the 3000 dead Americans on 9/11. Its not part of the PR campaign favored by the assorted morally bankrupt management at FBI headquarters. They have literally gone to the dogs!

  13. As a former resident of Milwaukee (escaped in 04 for the Great Southwest) I can attest to its complete destruction by modern liberal Dems starting in the 70s. They just keep raising the taxes and driving out the business. There was a controversy going on when I left about how to rebuild the freeways. The Dem power structure literally did not want to make them bigger because they “didn’t want to help the suburbanites get in to work, they should live in the city.” Meanwhile, they wonder why companies build elsewhere. The Governor is a longterm Dem hack who is completely owned by the Indian casinos and the teachers’ union. The long time leader of the “radical Black community” , an alderman, was just arrested for extortion. The only city that is a better example of how liberalism destroys is New Orleans, and that’s just because there are no hurricanes in Milwaukee. When I was a kid it was run by Truman-era Dems and it was a nice place. It isn’t Happy Days there anymore.

  14. Dan Rather’s antics, meant to shore up more votes for John Kerry, actually BACK FIRED.
    It’s the missing piece to this puzzle, here.
    Since Bush received a BOUNCE of 4,000,000 extra votes as soon as what Dan Rather did became obvious;
    You’d have to go back to 2004 and see that the Internet began replacing how people talk to each other.
    As to the Bonkeys stealing their community’s votes, that’s not going to change.
    Up ahead, there’s going to be a need to tally, beforehand, the expected number of votes from any particular district. If more come in? Alarm bells go off. And, NONE OF THE VOTES enter without confirmations.
    No. Signing off as Judy Doe, and other pseudonyms, shouldn’t be something the FBI takes as legit.
    As soon as I read this post, today, Captain, I immediately thought back to election night 2004. And, how adamant the TV talking heads were, in not calling the race for Bush. Heck, John Kerry refused to concede. Not conceeding until mid-morning the next day.
    This leads me to believe that not only was the FIX in. It was not a big secret. Not anymore of a secret than Plame’s escapades.
    And, Hugh Hewitt’s comments, about having to VOTE, and not letting elections get stolen, really counts on a huge turnout. This is something the Bonkeys would love to prevent.
    What’s worse? That the Bonkeys steal elections? Or that they come up with candidates like this: Gene McCarthy, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Dukakis, Algore. And, the gigolo, John Kerry. (Well, they didn’t want their own constituents to pick, because the voters were picking Howie Dean.)
    You’d think even democraps would be angry at the manipulations.

  15. The only city that is a better example of how liberalism destroys is New Orleans, and that’s just because there are no hurricanes in Milwaukee.
    At least we require photo IDs for voting down here… If the corruption is that bad up there, then by whatever you hold holy, fix it before you get your dangly-bits caught in the wringer by a disaster like we were down here. Since Katrina, I’ve been firmly convinced that political corruption should carry the Death Penalty. We’d have not lost as many people if we had a properly functioning government at the time of the storm.

  16. In Texas, in the 1990s, they passed a law requiring the election judge coming from the party with the most votes for governor in that precinct, and the assistant judge from the party with the second-most votes. Additionally, election workers had to be split as close to 50-50 as possible between those two parties.
    The law was passed because in one Dallas suburb (Arlington) all the election workers were Republicans, and the Democrats made the mistake of claiming election fraud had taken place there. The then Republican minority countered with the bill outlined, and the Dems were in a position where they had to support it.
    Remarkably, the first election after it took effect was the first one where Republicans swept all statewide races. It seems that the number of Democrats in areas that had formerly been Democrat monopolies (in East Texas, the Rio Grande Valley and big cities), did not return nearly as many votes. One precinct which regularly had over 100% of its registered voters cast ballots was down to a more normal (for the rest of the state) 40%.
    Having both parties in the room significantly cut back the opportunities for fraud.

  17. Vote fraud should carry a mandatory five year sentence without possibility of parole. Conspiracy to commit election fraud should carry a mandatory twenty year sentence.
    Voters should have to show ID – allowing someone to vote fraudulently is the same as denying me the right to vote.

  18. Ray – you got the problem backwards. They counted too many ballots compared to what they issued.
    It is not that they gave out ballots that didn’t get counted (which is possible), but that they counted more ballots than they gave out (which can only happen with fraud or culpable incompetence).

  19. “Ray – you got the problem backwards. They counted too many ballots compared to what they issued.
    Your right, I misread the original post. My apologies.
    I have a question for any one who may live in Milwaukee: Do the precincts there employ the use of independent observers (they do not handle the ballots or verify any counts, nor can they assist the voters in any way other than generally) as we do here in Minneapolis?
    The reason I ask is that it would be very difficult to “stuff the ballot box” while under observation by one or more “independent” observers, especially if one of those observers were affiliated with the opposition party. A Republican in a precinct with a Democrat majority of voters (or vice versa) would notice if the precinct judges were adding fraudulent ballots while those ballots were still at the precinct and that observer would assuredly scream to high heaven about he or she witnessed.

  20. I am amused that whenever a Dem posts a story about a precinct with a supposed election irregularity or snafu, the said precinct is always a heavily Democratic district. Somehow the GOP is so powerful that it can perform it’s evil tricks deep in the camp of the enemy. The thought that Dems by nature are natural screwups never seems to enter their noggins.
    I do fear that there will be more corruption and hair-thin successes by the Dems in the future. Remember all those stories about fradulence being rampant in voter registration. The election officials only caught the lazy ones who tried to turn in signatures of Mickey Mouse, etc. I believe a lot more got through and will be voted enmasse in every subsequent election.
    As a side note, much is made of the supposed 90% voter preference by Blacks towards the Democrats. I believe the real reason is that most Blacks do not cast their votes personally — the majority are voted by precinct bosses — hence the astronomical turnout numbers (108% in one district in St. Louis, more than the registered voters in Philly, etc.)

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