MADISON, Wis. (AP) – A lawsuit demanding Wisconsin election officials verify voters’ identity before the November election could lead to frustration at the polls and exhausted clerks in a hotly contested state in the presidential race.
Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday, demands that the state Government Accountability Board order election clerks to confirm the identities of potentially tens of thousands of voters – and possibly many more – who have registered since Jan. 1, 2006.
The work would have to be done by Election Day, Nov. 4. Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi has scheduled a Sept. 19 hearing in the case.
A leader of local election clerks on Thursday predicted huge problems if the judge sides with Van Hollen.
“This is going to be a nightmare,” said Nancy Zastrow, city clerk in Milton and president of the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association. “It’s going to make voters frustrated. Poll workers are getting frustrated.”
The federal Help America Vote Act requires states to build a central voter registration list and check it against other state databases to confirm registrants’ identities.
The law went into effect Jan. 1, 2006, but Wisconsin election officials couldn’t get their cross-checking software to work until this past Aug. 6. The Government Accountability Board, which runs state elections, instructed local election clerks to verify the identities only of people registered since that date.
Van Hollen, a Republican and co-chair of GOP presidential hopeful John McCain’s Wisconsin campaign, argues in his lawsuit the board should do the checks retroactive to Jan. 1, 2006, since that’s when the federal mandate took effect. He wants the board to determine who is ineligible and remove them from the registration rolls.
It’s unclear just how many registrants that might entail.
According to Government Accountability Board estimates, about 1 million people have registered to vote since Jan. 1, 2006. Election clerks say they would have to check each one, although Justice Department spokesman Kevin St. John has said they would have to check only people who registered by mail, which amounts to about 240,000 between Jan. 1, 2006, and this Aug. 6.
The problem is the software is still unreliable. It’s been red-flagging hundreds of registrants, mostly because their names don’t match how they’re entered in other databases.
State law allows people to register at the polls the day of the election, but that route comes with its own set of headaches.
Voters must show proof of residency such as a utility bill. If they don’t want to do that, they can cast a provisional ballot. They would then have until the end of the next day to show the clerks their proof.
Van Hollen says in his lawsuit that’s a minor inconvenience.
But University of Wisconsin at Madison political scientist Charles Franklin said long lines – and tempers – could develop at the polls as voters who have done nothing wrong but got red-flagged anyway try to sort everything out.
“That adds to the discouragement of voting, something the lawsuit doesn’t address at all,” Franklin said.
Checking the names back to Jan. 1, 2006, and accommodating same-day registrants would mean long hours and require extra staff for clerks already overwhelmed preparing for the presidential election, Zastrow said.
Justice Department spokesman Kevin St. John said the checks won’t disenfranchise any eligible voter and will protect election integrity.
