MacIver News Service | July 30, 2012
[Racine, Wisc…] You can now examine the same day voter registration postcards that were returned to the City Clerk in Racine in the wake of the June 5 recall.Within 30 days of any Wisconsin election, municipalities are required to enter the names and addresses of Election Day registrants into the state voter registration system. The state Government Accountability Board then sends out postcards to these newly registered voters to verify their names and addresses to confirm their legitimacy.
Out of approximately 4,500 people who registered on Election Day, the City of Racine has had 180 postcards which had incorrect addresses returned, with more expected in the coming weeks.
The MacIver News Service has had several pending open records requests with the Racine City Clerk for information regarding same day registration there. Last week, MacIver staff went to the Racine City Hall to personally inspect the returned postcards.
Here is a link to photographs of those cards.
Included in these piles of postcards are four individuals who voted on June 5th without providing an address. In those instances, clerk employees enter the address of City Hall, so the GAB’s verification cards would be returned and counted.
In general, these 180 returned cards do not mean these 180 registrations are all fraudulent.
Some of the cards indicate the addresses had misspellings, data entry errors and missing apartment numbers. Many, however, indicate the addressee has moved, is ‘temporarily away’ or that the card is otherwise undeliverable as addressed.
The MacIver News Service staff is currently examining the cards more thoroughly. Meanwhile, because it is in the public interest, we make this information available to you.
NOTE: There are more than 180 pictures in this set of photos because when the postal label had covered the original address, we captured both the card as it was delivered to the clerk, and took another photo to show the original address. The hand written notes on these cards were placed there by the staff of the City of Racine Clerk’s office as a result of their examination and subsequent effort to either contact these voters or purge their names from the poll list.