January 18, 2005
Demographics Or Fraud?
Wisconsin bloggers are giving massive coverage to the interesting developments regarding voter registration in Milwaukee. Owen in particular is digging for further details. Captain Ed, in Minneapolis, is seeing to it that the story gets wider attention. One thing is missing so far from the story, and that is any proof of vote fraud.
I know for a fact that vote fraud goes on in Milwaukee. I had the proof in my hands, but at the time of the local aldermanic election in the spring of 2000 I had no idea how important that proof would come to be. That election was hotly contested, and won by the incumbent by a very narrow margin. After the election, we got postcards thanking us for having voted. All of us did, even a voter at our address who we had never heard of.
Chicago has a reputation for vote fraud, but the last time I saw proof of it was back in 1963. My wee wifey was an election judge in Chicago for 20 years. She saw a very well run machine making sure every legitimate vote by people they could count on was cast, but she never saw any sign of fraud. She also never saw anyone have any trouble cleanly punching the chad out of the ballot, but that's a whole 'nother issue.
Posted by triticale at January 18, 2005 11:54 PMYou're right, we have no proof of fraud -- yet. But there's no question that something fishy was going on in Milwaukee this year, as in 2000. I think if we keep pursuing this issue, we'll either find the "smoking gun", or we'll at the very least make the point that there is a lack of trust in our elections, and that reform is seriously needed. We're not trying to disenfranchise anybody; we just want to make sure that every vote is a legitimate vote.
It occurs to me that this is similar to what's happened with MSM: They've damaged their credibility so badly, that now if I read a story with an AP byline, for example, I am very likely to think, "what's false about this story?"
We really don't want that to happen with our elections.
(And I bet you wish you still had that postcard!)
Posted by: M. E. at January 19, 2005 10:15 AM