Govt. Accountability Board may order voter checks

Talk about it

The state Government Accountability Board could do today (Tuesday) what the attorney general wanted done before the election – order local clerks to double-check voter registrations since 2006.

J.B. Van Hollen went to court over the matter. He said the federal law required that a person’s information on voter records be exactly the same as on the person’s driver’s license and other public documents.

But that was only made possible in August, when the statewide voter list went fully online.

Local clerks said they could never get the older record checks done in time for last week’s elections.

In late October, a judge said threw out Van Hollen’s lawsuit and he appealed the ruling last week.

But it would all be moot today, if the accountability board approves the checks. State GOP chairman Reince Priebus said he laughed out loud when he heard the board might do it.

The party joined Van Hollen’s suit, saying it’s tried for four years to demand the voter checks in the name of fighting fraud.

Now, Priebus says it’s frustrating that the board apparently took so long to agree but in his words, “we’ll take it.”

Democrats accused Republicans of trying to discourage Wisconsinites from voting, by throwing technicalities in their faces.

Tags: government accountability board, wisconsin, news, voter, check