Milwaukee being denied enough ballots.

[crispini]

I haven't seen an actionn thread on this yet... we need to SNOW this jerk just like we snowed Mr. 80 pound paper.

City, county spar over ballot supply
Walker cites fraud concerns; Barrett cries foul
By DAVE UMHOEFER and GREG J. BOROWSKI
[e-mail]
Posted: Oct. 12, 2004

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, citing vote-fraud concerns, is publicly balking at a City of Milwaukee request for almost 260,000 additional ballots in anticipation of high turnout for the Nov. 2 presidential election.

Mayor Tom Barrett blasted Walker's stance, and Common Council President Willie Hines Jr. immediately joined in, saying it was an attempt to suppress the central-city vote.

"I'm going to lay this at the footsteps of the county if there aren't enough ballots in the city," said Barrett.

Barrett said that the 679,000 ballots the county had agreed to print were less than the amount prepared for the presidential election in 2000 as well as for the the gubernatorial race in 2002. He and the city's top election official said that the city requested 938,000 ballots from the county, which, by law, pays for and prints ballots.

More at: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct04/266144.asp

Sign the people for American way petition:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=17242

LBN Thread on it here, but no action yet.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=902120

I'm off to hunt contact info.....

[crispini]

1. Found this

http://www.milwaukeecounty.org/Service/organizationDetail.asp?org=3010&audience=5

Mission Statement: The mission of the election commission is to administer federal, state, county and municipal elections in a manner that assures public confidence in the accuracy, efficiency and fairness of the election process and to enforce state election and campaign laws county-wide.

Parent Organization: Milwaukee County

Administrator: Janice Dunn

Office Address: Courthouse
901 N. 9th Street, RM G-3
Milwaukee, WI 53233-1458

Office Contact: Election Commission

Office Email: [e-mail]

Office Phone: [phone]

Office Fax: [phone]

[crispini]

2. Aha!

Scott Walker is or was running for re-election:
http://www.scottwalker.org/
Surprise! He's a Republican!

Here's contact info from the site:
http://www.scottwalker.org/contact.html

[crispini]

3. Let's see...

http://www.milwaukeecounty.org/Service/staffDetail.asp?id=1662

Organization: County Executive

Contact Address: Courthouse, Room 306
901 N. 9th Street
Milwaukee, WI 53233

Contact Phone: [phone]

Contact Fax: [phone]

Contact Email: [e-mail]

[crispini]

4. Ok, this is two days old.

I'm going to email the reporter and see if he'll give me a status before I totally start snowing everybody with it....

[sybylla]

5. Snow away

Check out these links in the Wisconsin Forum.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=186x2437

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=186x2423

It is still an issue. Scott Walker is a puke, Milwaukee's mayor is the former Dem Congressman, Tom Barrett. My plan is to mail him on the "voter fraud concerns" in the article. It's none of his business how the city of Milwaukee disburses ballots to voters. It is his job to provide those ballots.

Nail his ass to the wall. And don't forget to complain to the state elections board.

Wisconsin State Elections Board
Kevin J. Kennedy, Executive Director

http://elections.state.wi.us/
[e-mail]
[phone]


Rumor has it that the governor may be able to override this nonsense as well. When I get confirmation, I'll post contact info for him as well.

[Bushfire]

7. Mayor email addy here

[e-mail]

and to contact the Gov... [e-mail]

http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/contact.asp?locid=19

my brief letter to the Gov...

Hon. Gov. Doyle,

Please intervene on behalf of the residents of the City of Milwaukee who are in danger of having their votes suppressed in the Nov 2nd election by Milwaukee County Exec Scott Walker. He is denying Mayor Tom Barrett's request for additional ballots to be printed. There is an unprecedented effort to register new voters, and Scott Walkers estimates clearly do not take this into consideration. The residents of Milwaukee do not want to be what Florida was in 2000. Please take my concerns seriously, and contact me should you want to discuss this further.

----------------------------------

I was more in depth to Scott Walker though...

----------------------------------

on edit: The Governor is having a press conference regarding this issue as I type this.

[sybylla]

8. Thanks - any word on the press conference?

I missed the news on WPR and there isn't anything posted on The Wheeler Report yet.

[Bushfire]

9. Local NBC affiliate covered the press conference, and Kevin Kennedy

said it first has to go to the 3 person Election Commission for Milw Cnty for a ruling. If the Mayor is not successful with the Elec. Commission, then they can appeal to the state. Should have the Election Commission ruling in a day or two.

on edit: article covering dispute

"Although the city has requested more ballots than there are eligible voters in Milwaukee, officials say that the base number the county will provide for each ward is lower than in the presidential election of 2000.

In addition, they say, the county is providing fewer ballots per ward than in the November 2002 election, which featured the governor's race and state and local contests."

more...

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct04/266457.asp?source=tmj4

[sybylla]

10. And exactly how do they know the number of eligible voters?

You only have to live in the district something like 30 days before you can vote and you can register at the polls. They must be pulling that number out of their asses. Unless Milwaukee did a census in the last 60 days, they can only guess at the number of eligible voters.

WTF?

[Big Al from WI]

11. This is Wisconsin

It should get taken care of. The elections commission is non-partisan and the Secretary of State (which actually doesn't do much) is a Democrat in any case. And our Republican legislature is actually good for something, they overwhelmingly BANNED black box voting in Wisconsin. I've heard a lot of bad stuff about this Walker guy- hopefully he gets voted out at the next opportunity but there should be a decent chance he'll be put in his place.

[sybylla]

6. kick

[dragonlady]

12. I called Scott Walker's office this afternoon

to say I hoped Milwaukee County wouldn't become this year's Palm Beach County. They sounded pretty harassed.

Scott Walker got in because of a recall election (former county executive tainted by a scandal concerning county pension plan). He could be recalled as well, and should be if voters don't have enough ballots because of this partisan stunt. By the way, his term expires in the spring of 2008, although he wants to run for governor in 2006.

[whirlygigspin]

13. attention Scott Walker

you have been reported to the FBI for prosecution.

[LibbyLou]

14. my letter to the election board

Dear Sir,

After speaking with both Scott Walker's office and Mr. Barrett's office and reviewing the facts surrounding the request for more ballots at each polling location, I've concluded that there is a real possibility of voter disenfranchisement if adequate quantities of ballots are not created in advance.

I'm sure Mr. Walker wants a fair and stress free experience for each voter in Milwaukee and just doesn't understand the impact of the several GET OUT THE VOTE initiatives in the state of Wisconsin.
I've personally registered 26 voters from Milwaukee and know of at least 20 other persons who have done much more. Why wouldn't it make sense to create enough ballots so that the polling locations are adequately provided for
?
I'm sure that if Mr. Walker more closely examined his reason of possible voter chaos and the illegal grabbing of ballots, he'd see that it was quite preposterous. I was a poll worker in Wauwatosa last year and even with our lower number of poll workers, the ballots were safe and protected at all times. Let's not allow Wisconsin to appear highly suspect for not printing the proper estimate of ballots.

I look forward to hearing that this issue was put to rest with the right judgment of increasing the ballots for each polling location. Thank you for your review and efforts in this matter.

[sybylla]

17. Nice Job, LibbyLou!

I've written everyone else but the SEB. They're next.

[cthrumatrix]

15. let's get on this guys.....

[Viking12]

16. E-mail Governor Jim Doyle also

He's on our side and is getting involved. I sent his office an e-mail this morning asking that he intervene on behalf of the State.