Judge Tosses Lawsuit Challenging Voter Registration Checks

MARK PITSCH

A Dane County circuit judge today dismissed a lawsuit by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to require the state elections agency to check voter registrations against other state databases dating to 2006, which critics said could have thrown hundreds of thousands of registrations into doubt.

Judge Maryann Sumi said Van Hollen failed to state an adequate claim for bringing the lawsuit and noted that state law has consistently favored protecting citizens' right to vote. Sumi also said that Van Hollen did not have standing to bring the lawsuit.

Van Hollen had sought to require the state Government Accountability Board to enforce the federal Help America Vote Act, which required Wisconsin election officials to verify registrants' names and ages against state driver, death and felon records beginning on Jan. 1, 2006.

But Sumi said only the U.S. attorney general can enforce that federal law.

Van Hollen filed the lawsuit after the accountability board decided to conduct the registration checks starting Aug. 6, when the state's registration database became operational.

Wisconsin is one of ten states that missed the January 2006 deadline, and the next to last to develop a functioning database, according to officials in those states and electionline.org, which tracks election issues.

DOJ spokesman Kevin St. John said the Department of Justice plans to appeal, possibly directly to the state Supreme Court.

St. John said the department is "disappointed with the ruling" and said it would appeal because "there are going to be future elections."

He also said the department believes the accountability board is violating state law, which he said requires compliance with HAVA, and the attorney general can enforce state election law.

Lester Pines, a lawyer for the board, called the ruling "an absolute validation of the position of the board."

"Judge Sumi's decision was exceptionally scholarly, well-reasoned and supported by law," Pines said.

The accountability board contended Van Hollen's suit could compel the board and local clerks to check the voting records of the 1 million voters who registered between January 2006 and Aug. 5 of this year.

Most of those voters have already shown the necessary proof of residency, said Barbara Hansen, director of the state voting system. But about 241,000 people who registered in person at a clerk's office, by mail or with a special deputy authorized to register voters would not have had to show proof of residence, and their checks would be the most time consuming, Hansen said.

Van Hollen had argued that all effort should be made to conduct the expanded checks before the Nov. 4 election. A state co-chairman of Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, Van Hollen said the presidential election could hang in the balance.

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, characterized the lawsuit as an effort by Republicans to remove eligible voters from the polling lists.

"The law in Wisconsin is clear," Doyle said in a statement after Sumi's ruling. "The Government Accountability Board, not the Republican attorney general, has the responsibility to supervise elections."

It's not clear what checks back to January 2006 would turn up. A check by the accountability board of voters who registered between Aug. 6 and Aug. 26 this year showed discrepancies in the information of 22 percent of the registrations. But most of those mismatches related to transcription errors or names being recorded one way on a driver's license and another way on a voter registration card.

Check back here for more on this developing story, or pick up tomorrow's State Journal.

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