Voter verification incomplete?

By Dustin Block

Thursday, January 20, 2005 2:06 AM CST

RACINE - State Rep. Robin Vos accused the city of Racine on Wednesday of violating state law by failing to send out voter verification cards to people who registered to vote on the same day as the Nov. 2 election.

"Racine County residents deserve fair and proper elections," Vos, R-Caledonia, said. "I'm disappointed to see that the city of Racine isn't doing everything possible to ensure this happens, especially when Wisconsin law requires it."

Racine City Clerk Carolyn Moskonas, who was recently appointed to the position, confirmed Wednesday that the city doesn't send out postcards to same-day voter registrants. She added that there is no record of the city ever sending out postcards to verify the registrations.

"My predecessor didn't do it, and there's no money in my budget to do it," Moskonas said.

At issue are the more than 3,000 people who signed up to vote in the city of Racine on election day. In the weeks leading up to the election, Moskonas and her three-person staff called or sent letters to people who registered to vote.

But since Nov. 2, Moskonas said her staff has focused on processing the election, which saw about 38,000 city residents vote. Moskonas said her office won't be done with the election until the end of January - long after anything could be done to impact the election.

"All it could do is clean up our poll lists," she said, "it's not like we could get the votes back."

Other cities in Wisconsin send postcards to same-day registrants to confirm that their address matches their registration. If postcards are returned undeliverable, the cards are turned over to the district attorney's office for an investigation into possible voter fraud.

Vos wrote a letter to Racine Mayor Gary Becker asking the city to send out the postcards before the city's Feb. 15 primary election.

While there is no penalty for a municipality failing to send out post cards to verify voter registrations, Vos said that a public officer who intentionally fails or refuses to perform a mandatory duty can be charged with a felony. If found guilty, the public official could be fined $10,000 and put in jail for up to 6 months, Vos said.

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