Friday, August 12, 2005

Wisconsin governor vetoes Voter ID bill for third time

For all the talk of the Republican "theft" of Ohio from John Kerry last November, there has been little talk of the shenanigans that went on in the Dairy State last year.

From AP:

Jim Doyle vetoed a Republican bill Friday that would have forced Wisconsin voters to show government-issued photo identification at the polls.

The veto marks the third time Doyle, a Democrat, has killed a GOP attempt at establishing a photo ID requirement at the polls. Republicans, still stinging from President Bush's narrow loss to Democrat John Kerry in Wisconsin last fall, insist photo identification at the polls would fix what they call a broken electoral system.

But the governor said photo identification would do nothing to correct problems while making it more difficult for people who don't have driver's licenses or state-issued photo IDs, especially senior citizens. Doyle has defended his two prior vetoes on the same grounds.

``Under this proposal, nearly one-quarter of Wisconsin's elderly population could be disenfranchised. I cannot allow that to happen,'' the governor said in a written statement.
Investigators in Milwaukee believe 4,600 more ballots were cast than registered voters in the city during the 2004 presidential race. Felons cast hundreds of votes and people used fake names and addresses, they say.


The state GOP this week announced it found evidence of nine more cases of double-voting in Milwaukee. State Republican Party chairman Rick Graber said investigators used U.S. Postal Service change-of-address records and voter lists to trace the names of nine people who voted in Milwaukee, then voted again in either Chicago, Minneapolis or Madison.

Bush lost Wisconsin by just 12,000 votes. Most of the allegations of vote fraud come from heavily Democratic Milwaukee County.

Wisconsin is one of the few states that allows election day voter registration.

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