The Imperceptive Leading The Dyspeptic

Patrick "Preview" McIlheran thinks that some people should voluntarily give up their right to vote.

I guess he got bored of just trying to suppress their rights outright, and is now trying to use reverse psychology or something.

Besides just for being offensive, another reason to ignore Preview's advice is the source of it. It is rare to see such arrogance from people with the least cause to be arrogant.

A Pickle For Charlie

Charlie Sykes loves big business. It doesn't matter what the business is, oil, pharma, weapons manufacturing, just as long as it's big.

Charlie Sykes also hates letting minorities and elderly people vote. That is why he is always having faux outrage about Voter ID and ACORN.

Now Charlie Sykes is in a pickle. It appears that big business, Aurora Health Care, is holding voter registration drives.

I wonder if his head will explode. I hope not.

Hairspray all over could create quite the mess.

Paddy's minority report on voter fraud

Paddy McIlheran, a member of the Journal Sentinel editorial board, thinks that "the Milwaukee police" found vote fraud. He's just beside himself, apparently having just learned that there were some mistakes made in the election more than three years ago -- mistakes first reported, and reported extensively and repeatedly, by his own newspaper.

But 2004 included much more, enough that U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic could report afterward that he stood by his initial assessment: There was clear evidence of vote fraud, even if most cases would be impossible to prosecute.

Now, the Milwaukee Police Department’s report serves up 67 pages of cases, addresses, numbers and this conclusion: “The task force believes fraud was committed.” It quotes one of its investigators: “I know I voted in the election, but I can’t be certain it counted.”

The details are damning, with investigators repeatedly blaming not mischance but the flawed combination of an inept election apparatus and the nation’s most porous voting procedures.

Perhaps Paddy Mac should read Milwaukee's daily newspaper, the Journal Sentinel, which pays him to write such drivel.

In its front page story, he might have found this:

In a statement, Police Chief Edward Flynn said the report's findings are the views of the investigators, and the department would not take a stand on the policy issues.

In other words, it was not the Milwaukee Police Department but some still-unidentified detectives who took it upon themselves to recommend policy changes in the state's voting laws. Their assignment was to investigate for possible criminal behavior, of which they admitted they found almost none.

Then there's US Attorney Biskupic, the guy who reportedly almost lost his job because Republicans didn't think he was aggressive enough in trying to suppress the vote. McIlheran says Biskupic said there was "clear evidence of voter fraud." But Paddy didn't say how much. Here, again, is what the JS said in its lead story:

In the end, U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic said there had been no findings of widespread fraud. About a dozen cases were pursued, to mixed results.

In other words, a handful of cases of proven fraud among 277,000 votes cast in the city.

Then there's the editorial, representing the view of the paper's editorial board, of which Paddy is a member. It says, among other things:

A Milwaukee police investigation of a badly managed general election in 2004 describes a litany of, well, bad management.

This is old news. The Journal Sentinel has reported extensively on this, and, shortly after the 2004 election, a city task force noted many of the same problems.

But here's what you should consider if you agree with the report's recommendations to eliminate same-day registration and create a voter ID requirement. The city and the state have had at least two major elections since 2004. There was the 2006 November election and the state primary election earlier this month. Both had good turnouts, and both went swimmingly...

Almost as an afterthought, the report recommends, "in the absence of any substantive change," that election inspectors be given "adequate training and resources" to do their jobs well.

Fortunately, cooler heads already moved that final and best recommendation to the front of the line a while ago. They did so because, as the report seems to document, true incidences of voter fraud were few.

Just consider Paddy's rantings the complaints of an editorial board member who had a chance to make his case to his colleagues on the editorial board, lost the argument, and now feels compelled to make a fuss about it. No one else on the board behaves that way. But, then again, no one else uses terms like bien-pensant when a 25-cent word would do. Perhaps a tribute to the late William F. Buckley, Jr.? Not in his league, Paddy. Not now, not ever.

(Cross-posted at Uppity Wisconsin.)

Sigh. It Was Only A Matter Of Time

Everyone knows that minorities, women, the poor, and the elderly tend to vote Democratic. It is also easily deduced that they would be more likely to do so after eight years of the Bush Misadministration. Add to this that the most likely Democratic candidate for president will be either an African-American man or a woman (and a Clinton, nonetheless) and that Scott Walker is facing a serious challenge from an African-American woman, and you know what the right side is going to be squawking about.

Yup. They will be screaming for the need for voter ID. Even though it would repress many times the people from voting, than it would prevent real voter fraud, they will still be yammering away about it. This way they will have a handy excuse when they lose in April and in November.

McIlheran has started the ball rolling. It is only a matter of time before the others join in.

To brace yourself, I won't go into a spiel about how wrong they are about the whole thing. I will, however, refer you to the works of two gentlemen and scholars that have researched it and squelched their hateful attacks already. Those stalwart men are my friends, Brew City Brawler and Jay Bullock.

M&Ms for dinner?

Jessica McBride can't say enough good things about the Sunday column by State GOP Chair Reince Priebus on why felons should not be allowed to vote in Wisconsin. She calls it a "great piece" and sends readers his way.

This Priebus argument (if you can call it that) was especially noteworthy, in McBride's eyes:

So why on Earth would we trust felons still serving a sentence to take part in our democratic process - to make important decisions that influence how law-abiding citizens live their lives? It's akin to allowing your 2-year-old to choose the dinner meal. If that happened, surely M&Ms and cookies would be on the menu every night.

And if felons could vote -- which they can in some states -- what would be on the menu? Get out of jail free cards?

Something far worse than that, McBride suggests: Felons would vote for Democrats! She links to a story saying Al Gore would have won the 2000 presidential election if felons had been allowed to vote. (He did win, actually, even without their votes, but a funny thing happened on the way to the Electoral College.)

The study posits that since racial minorities and the poor – groups that tend to vote for Democrats– make up a disproportionate number of felons, a hypothetical felon voting bloc would be so overwhelmingly Democratic it could swing national and statewide elections.

74 percent of felons would have voted Democratic in presidential and U.S. Senate elections dating back to 1972...

The other 26 per cent, presumably, are white collar criminals who simply embezzled or ripped off stockholders, or suburban Republicans who ran afoul of the law, like Scott Jensen, and who don't like M&Ms for dinner.

(But think of the possibilities if the GOP had to compete for the felon vote. Jensen could have headed Felons for Bucher, and perhaps advised Bucher against running a Willie Horton-style campaign for attorney general.)

But when you come right down to it, it's the same reason the Wisconsin Republican Party now headed by Priebus wants to make it more and more difficult for minorities and the poor to vote, even if they are law-abiding citizens. They are more likely to be Democratic voters. Even the so-called study got that right.

McBride also likes this argument:

The argument that we shouldn't disenfrancise felons on paper ignores the 14th Amendment, by the way, which specifically states that people can lose the right to vote for participation in rebellion, or other crime.

Priebus puts it this way:

The Supreme Court has long concluded that the 14th Amendment allows states to deny voting rights to these felons because their past acts have proved them unworthy of voting.

It's true that states have the ability to deny felons the right to vote. But the 50 states handle the issue in many different ways, Project Vote reports. In Maine and Vermont, felons don't lose their right to vote. In 13 more states (and DC), felons can vote once they have served their time. In 5 more stations, probationers can vote. In 19 states, including Wisconsin, rights are restored after completion of parole and probation. And in 11 states, some or all felons can lose their voting rights permanently.

It is quite a leap to say that because states can bar felons from voting that Wisconsin should be among the toughest. States also have the legal ability to impose the death penalty, but Wisconsin hasn't had it since 1853 -- not that Republicans haven't tried and failed to pass the death penalty in Wisconsin.

Perhaps it's time for Priebus's party to try a new argument -- that executing felons would get them off the voter rolls for good, and eliminate the possibility that they might vote illegally.

That argument is more cogent than the threat of M&Ms for dinner.