"Please back up your statement about same-day voter registration encouraging fraud with at least one instance of fraud resulting from same-day voter registration."

http://mediatrackers.org/2011/10/26/uncovered-three-out-of-state-seiu-activists-registered-to-vote-from-hotel/

I give you not one, but three instances of such fraud. Any other questions?

Bren:

Before the Voter ID law was passed, it was permissible for someone to 'vouch' for another's identity/residency. There's no telling how many non-existent people made it into the voter registration books because someone falsely 'vouched' for them during the registration process. Without voter ID there is no way of knowing if the registered 'voter' is the person that is actually doing the voting. Note that it is almost impossible to catch/prosecute anyone for this type of voter fraud.

@CowDung -

It's Bert, not Bren (not there's much of a difference in message).

Thanks for the correction Hoffa.

Hoffa, It is not nice to compare someone to Bren. SHAME< SHAME<SHAME

If there is no fraud the Democrats would not fight every minor attempt, Like voter ID to ensure elections are honest.

Another problem is that it took an 1.5 hours part the polls closing in some areas to get through lines. A large part of that is filling out voter registration forms. Considering this election was just two offices in most areas, no way should the delays been that long for people trying to vote. I suspect most of that could have been avoided by having people register prior to the election.Another part of that is running out of ballots and the registration forms which would be easier to predict if people were registered before election day. That's how it relates to the recall election.

@Bryant Divelbiss...Faulty reasoning and circular.

Now that they require ID for registrations, and have eliminated the ability for a person to vouch for another to 'prove' ID/residency, I don't have a problem with same day registration anymore.

We should make voting as easy and convenient as possible. We should have early voting, beginning two weeks in advance of every non-primary election, including polls on weekends. We should absolutely have same-day registration. For voters who do not yet have the necessary proof of residency such as a utility bill, those ballots should be provisional pending verification.

I believe in democracy, and that democracy works best when more people participate. I'm every bit as much against ineligible voters voting, but no one has ever demonstrated any pervasive system where ineligible voters actually cast ballots. It's a minuscule problem at best. Anyone who favors efforts to make voting harder, clearly fears the will of the people.

It's either a miniscule problem, or something that is impossible to detect.

I'm on the side of making sure it is a miniscule problem by verifying voter identity rather than just assuming that it isn't happening.

Summarized and translated version of Bert's statement:

Make it easy to bus people in to vote in our elections, because we needed more than the 3 SEIU officials from out-of-state that were caught doing it so that my side can continue to try and steal elections.

@Bert, where do you propose the funds and workforce come from for your idea. Imagine the outcry when the votes haven't been tabulated a few minutes after the polls close so that there is a winner announced.

Democracy does not work better with uninformed voters.

So, No same day registration and an official I.D. required. For a book signing?

We should make book signing as easy and convenient as possible.

Is Barrett going to be their main speaker? This is one event where there will be a lot of "crying in their beer" :)

Tell Lena Taylor that she doesn't have to show-up if she signed the petition, she is an idiot.

@Greg -

Has there been any solid proof that such robo-calls were actually being made, as Screamin Lena has asserted? If I'm recalling this correctly, she actually accused the state Republican Party of being behind those calls on The Ed Show. So far, there's been no solid proof of this what-so-ever, and in all honesty, it sounds just as phony and contrived as the Walker love child story that Dems threw out the weekend before the election.

I think the RPW should sue for defamation deriving from slander. Lena REALLY needs to be taught a lesson!

@JRH...Rather than go for 51% recall signatures, which would constitute a proxy election, why not just amend the constitution and pull recall out of the constitution altogether. Malfeasance, crimes and misdemeanors are already covered in Section 17 under impeachment. If we are going to have recalls, then set the recall signature minimum at 45%.

@Lyle -

That's an excellent point. I accept your proposal of a 45% threshold as fully reasonable.

I could accept removing from the constitution. Also, The 45% number might be enough considering none of these recalls made that threshold before challenges by the candidates.

I am not arguing that what they did was not behavior that justifies removing them from office, but their voters did not agree and the recall failed to deal with that issue. The only thing that prevents this is the complete failure in the end of the tactic to the point of Walker getting more of what he wanted. However my point is that it is unfair to the rest of the state to allow them to do that just because their voters support it. That is why I suggested requiring only a majority of the Senate for financial bills.

@red -- for malfeasance we have impeachment. Recall is for elected officials who overstep their 'mandate' and ignore almost half of the people they were elected to represent. In plain English, you can't lie your way into office and then have four years to do whatever you want.

Wisconsin's 25% of the electorate in the previous election is one of the most stringent in the nation.

"I think the fix for this is not recalls, instead either allowing the governor to replace Legislators that refuse to show after 3 weeks or eliminate the need for more than half to be present to vote on financial bills." - you actually have some support for the latter from Senator Tim Cullen (D) who drafted such a constitutional amendment, but how can you seriously suggest the former? Does separation of powers mean nothing?

@Mr Tolley -

I believe that Mr. Divelbiss meant to say "invalid signatures," for whatever reason (including fraud), as is factually supported by the work conducted by the 'iverifytherecall' people. Just because Walker chose not to challenge such signatures, doesn't mean that factual support doesn't exist to back up such an assertion. Whether or not one agrees with the conclusions reached by the 'iverifytherecall' people is indeed arguable, but still doesn't change the FACT that there is evidence to substantiate such a claim. Also, let's not forget the fact that over 30,000 signatures were tossed by the GAB from the petition to recall the Governor, while the petition to recall Senator Wanggaard saw nearly 20% of its signatures tossed by the GAB for being invalid, that's nearly 1 of every 5 signatures collected - and this was before any challenges being made by the respective campaigns.

It is also a FACT that the number of signatures submitted against governor Walker was less than the purported 1M+ claim that the DPW propagated for months before changing its tune to "nearly a million" signatures.

Fact: Divelbiss alleged "fraud" not "invalidity" and "vast amounts" of it at that. You can't move the goalposts on this: they are entirely different concepts. "Vast amounts of clearly fraudulent signatures" as Divelbiss alleges is patently false, and is not changed by what you might believe he meant to say.

Fact: the GAB tossed nowhere near 20% of the Wanggaard recall petition signatures. See http://tinyurl.com/7y92gjo - the GAB struck 643 of 23,712 signatures submitted or 2.7%. I suggest you are confusing "GAB struck" with "GAB looked at, didn't find support for them then moved into 'remaining challenges' column on the basis that the candidate needed to give further substance to the challenge, but weren't necessary to address in order to verify the sufficiency of the petition".

Fact: Wanggaard submitted his challenges on February 8th, 2012 (see http://tinyurl.com/7uwx44y); fact: the GAB verification had recommended striking 643 signatures from the Wanggaard petition on March 9th, 2012 (see first link). Therefore your claim that "the petition to recall Senator Wanggaard saw nearly 20% of its signatures tossed by the GAB for being invalid, that's nearly 1 of every 5 signatures collected - and this was before any challenges being made by the respective campaigns" is false.

@Geoff Tolley...Bryant Divelbiss is being consistent with his past blogs. I have found him to be guilty of consistent misrepresentation and hyperbole. Much of what he writes is directly from Mark Belling and other extreme right wing sources.

He is a manufacturing engineer working for Harley Davidson and is adamantly anti-labor.

Lyle, what's with the publishing of work info? What good does that do ?

@Bewildered...To give some context about his anti-labor rhetoric.

Walker did not challenge the signatures as he knew there were enough to meet the 25% criteria and he was better off to not delay, so the Governor Recall would be at the same time as the State Senators. Third parties had reported finding many issue but it does not matter with the 25% target.

Electoral success or little change in vote % means not enough or very many people felt whatever the issues was, to be important enough to vote them out. If we are to allow recalls it should be more than just the dedicated opposition that wants the Recall it should have support of most of the independents, clearly in all but Kapankes recall very few people changed their mind after the Walker reforms were in place, from the last election. If our recall system is rational it should be uncommon have a recall were the person being recalled survives.

@Mr. Tolley -

Please forgive Hoffa's omission of appropriately laying the foundation of my previous post. I had no idea that we had become so technical here on Patch - especially concerning a topic that has been previously discussed in full, specific, and exacting detail when such events originally occurred and were reported upon.

When I stated "saw nearly 20% of its signatures tossed," I meant in the context of "saw nearly 20% of its signatures tossed from the certified total" which is a factually accurate statement given the FACT that 23,712 signatures were originally submitted by the recall committee, but only 19,142 were actually certified as being valid by the Board, thus representing the tossing of 4,570 signatures, approximately 19.3% or nearly 1 in every 5 signatures collected, from the certified total. No other recall petition presented during this current round of recalls had such a high margin of signatures withheld from the certified total. Not to mention the FACT that an individual was arrested and is currently being prosecuted for having submitted fraudulent signatures in attempting to further the efforts of such recall.

The assertion of the timing component in my original statement should have been limited solely to the Walker petition, and for that, I stand corrected.

Lyle my views on Public Employee Unions come from last few years as I started to view the magnitude of the disaster they are for states both is cost and quality of services. My views do not represent my employer.

@Bryant Divelbiss.... You haven't a clue about public service workers. My wife is a good example. She is a child protection social worker and has to deal with the worst of the worst situations. She does a job that most people wouldn't want to do and very few could do it. She has more education and training than you do and earns probably 1/2 as much. She doesn't do the job for the money, but she is dedicated to helping children at risk. For the work she does what respect does she get from people like you, none. She has been scapegoated and demonized just because she works for a government agency. She wasn't at any of the demonstrations because she was working. She hasn't had a pay raise in over six years and the last one was a whopping 1%. If you want to walk a mile in her shoes then you'll find out that your stereotyping is unwarranted.

As extreme and emotive as your blogs have been and you coming out against unions, if you employer knew what you were up to, then they might not be too pleased. Even one of the people you work with called you out about your attitude and treatment of union members at work.

Lyle, GOD bless your wife for the work and dedications she does. I have a good friend that does similiar work, and she to is one of the shining stars of pubic sector employees.

I don't know why social workers are getting the shaft when it comes to pay. However, the vast majority (that I know of) make extremely good money and have great benefits. It is because of the emphasis placed on these workers that resulted in less pay for your wife.

Collective bargaining for public employees was NOT a right and who took what away from a hunter?

Nobody took away rights from a hunter, it was a theorectical statement. But don't you think if our legislature passed such a bill; there would be heck to pay at home & rightfully so?

Jeff, Fortunately you hold what I would guess is a minority opinion. I think the people of this state will back any changes to the recall laws. If you want more democracy, let's make everyone's term one year.

So basically Jeff wants every action put to referendum?

@Greg - When did I say that about referendums?

This is part of the problem with our political environment; everyone is eager to score points and nobody is listening.

You seem to be a proponent of referendum by recall.
"But don't you think if our legislature passed such a bill; there would be heck to pay at home & rightfully so?"

"This is part of the problem with our political environment; everyone is eager to score points and nobody is listening."
Not everyone!

Thanks for asking Greg, I'll try to answer as best as I can.

What I mean is that if an elected official acts in an extreme fashion, they shouldn't be surprised when their constituents use their constitutional rights. There is nothing wrong with our elected officials knowing that they have to answer to "we the people" when they represent us.

And that is why we have elections.

And by pointing this out you contributed to the topic how?

I like turtles