Biskupic: Majoring on the Minors
No Runny Eggs had this little item about the conviction of Kimberly Prude. The conviction for voting as a felon was upheld on appeal.
That is not the interesting part.
The interesting part of the ruling is this excerpt from the summary of the facts of the case: [Ms. Prude] attended a rally at which all persons were encouraged to march to Milwaukee City Hall, register to vote, request an absentee ballot and vote in the 2004 presidential election; Ms. Prude did all of these things with her fellow marchers. [...] Ms. Prude also filled out an application to be officially employed by the Election Commission as a poll worker on Election Day and was hired.
By this admission Ms. Prude committed 2 other felonies.
1) Felony Registration under WI Stats. 12.13(1)(b): "Whoever intentionally falsely procures registration or makes false statements to the municipal clerk, board of election commissioners or any other election official whether or not under oath violates this chapter"
2) Felons can't work the polls:
According to WI Stats. 12.13(2)(b)7 it is a felony for an election official (e.g. poll worker) to in the course of the person's official duties or on account of the person's official position, intentionally violate or intentionally cause any other person to violate any provision of chs. 5 to 12 for which no other penalty is expressly prescribed. In order to work a poll you MUST be an elector of that municipality and further, except for reassignment or canvass adjournment, must be an elector of the ward you are working. This is specified in WI Stats. 7.30(2)(a); ...each election official shall be a qualified elector of the ward or wards, or the election district, for which the polling place is established.
Felons are not legal electors and thus cannot be election inspectors.
Both of the above are felonies under WI Stat. 12.60(1)(a):
Whoever violates s. 12.09, 12.11 or 12.13 (1), (2) (b) 1. to 7. or (3) (a), (e), (f), (j), (k), (L), (m), (y) or (z) is guilty of a Class I felony.
Even more interesting to me is the role of Room 501 in this matter.
Who hired this felon?
Why was Ms. Jude not informed felons can't work the polls?
How many other ineligible election inspectors have been hired by the City of Milwaukee Election Commission?
Has the election Commission been following the requirements of WI Stats 7.30?
Hiring Ms. Jude means some election official at the Election Commission likely committed felonies under the sections of WI Stats. 12.13 cited above. But, if not a felony, then hiring Ms. Jude is certainly misdemeanor for someone in Room 501 under WI Stats. 12.13(2)(a),
The willful neglect or refusal by an election official to perform any of the duties prescribed under chs. 5 to 12 is a violation of this chapter.
Why is the joint task force investigating and prosecuting Ms. Jude, but not investigating or prosecuting the election officials (staff) of the Election Commission in Room 501?
Because the focus is voters not election officials.
Which is more of a threat to elections?
The voting of at most 82 felons within the whole the state, 34 of whom are from the county of Milwaukee.
or
City of Milwaukee Election Officials stuffing 4600+ extra ballots into the ballot box?
At MSOE I was taught not to major on the minors. If something is more than 2 orders of magnitude smaller, then ignore the smaller and focus on the larger.
Election fraud is no less than 4600 bogus votes in the City of Milwaukee. Voter fraud is at most 34 bogus votes for the City of Milwaukee. By the numbers, election fraud is more than 100 times the problem that voter fraud is.
If Biskupic wanted to be effective he would not major on the minors. He would investigate ELECTION fraud not voter fraud.
That is not the interesting part.
The interesting part of the ruling is this excerpt from the summary of the facts of the case: [Ms. Prude] attended a rally at which all persons were encouraged to march to Milwaukee City Hall, register to vote, request an absentee ballot and vote in the 2004 presidential election; Ms. Prude did all of these things with her fellow marchers. [...] Ms. Prude also filled out an application to be officially employed by the Election Commission as a poll worker on Election Day and was hired.
By this admission Ms. Prude committed 2 other felonies.
1) Felony Registration under WI Stats. 12.13(1)(b): "Whoever intentionally falsely procures registration or makes false statements to the municipal clerk, board of election commissioners or any other election official whether or not under oath violates this chapter"
2) Felons can't work the polls:
According to WI Stats. 12.13(2)(b)7 it is a felony for an election official (e.g. poll worker) to in the course of the person's official duties or on account of the person's official position, intentionally violate or intentionally cause any other person to violate any provision of chs. 5 to 12 for which no other penalty is expressly prescribed. In order to work a poll you MUST be an elector of that municipality and further, except for reassignment or canvass adjournment, must be an elector of the ward you are working. This is specified in WI Stats. 7.30(2)(a); ...each election official shall be a qualified elector of the ward or wards, or the election district, for which the polling place is established.
Felons are not legal electors and thus cannot be election inspectors.
Both of the above are felonies under WI Stat. 12.60(1)(a):
Whoever violates s. 12.09, 12.11 or 12.13 (1), (2) (b) 1. to 7. or (3) (a), (e), (f), (j), (k), (L), (m), (y) or (z) is guilty of a Class I felony.
Even more interesting to me is the role of Room 501 in this matter.
Who hired this felon?
Why was Ms. Jude not informed felons can't work the polls?
How many other ineligible election inspectors have been hired by the City of Milwaukee Election Commission?
Has the election Commission been following the requirements of WI Stats 7.30?
Hiring Ms. Jude means some election official at the Election Commission likely committed felonies under the sections of WI Stats. 12.13 cited above. But, if not a felony, then hiring Ms. Jude is certainly misdemeanor for someone in Room 501 under WI Stats. 12.13(2)(a),
The willful neglect or refusal by an election official to perform any of the duties prescribed under chs. 5 to 12 is a violation of this chapter.
Why is the joint task force investigating and prosecuting Ms. Jude, but not investigating or prosecuting the election officials (staff) of the Election Commission in Room 501?
Because the focus is voters not election officials.
Which is more of a threat to elections?
The voting of at most 82 felons within the whole the state, 34 of whom are from the county of Milwaukee.
City of Milwaukee Election Officials stuffing 4600+ extra ballots into the ballot box?
At MSOE I was taught not to major on the minors. If something is more than 2 orders of magnitude smaller, then ignore the smaller and focus on the larger.
Election fraud is no less than 4600 bogus votes in the City of Milwaukee. Voter fraud is at most 34 bogus votes for the City of Milwaukee. By the numbers, election fraud is more than 100 times the problem that voter fraud is.
If Biskupic wanted to be effective he would not major on the minors. He would investigate ELECTION fraud not voter fraud.
posted by John Washburn | 10:12 PM
3 Comments:
I was a Division of Corrections employee for many years, including service as a Probation & Parole Agent and supervisor of such. Allowing such employment was not allowed then.
DOC will NOT inform me of what actions, if any, have been taken against such felons.
Such employement has NEVER been allowed.
The question is why is the staff of room 501 not checking?
The answer is they're a bunch of Alfred E. Neumanns who don't think that E. Michael McCan't actually retired (they're probably right).
As for the 82 (in 2006) vs 4,500 (in 2004), I prefer to compare apples to apples. From the prelim report on the 2004 election fraud activities (somehow, Blogger made it a local link instead of to WisPolitics in the post) -
2. In addition, the task force has determined that more than 200 felons voted when they were not eligible to do so. In order to establish criminal cases, the government must establish willful violations in individual instances.
That, combined with 100 or so multi-votes/votes under assumed identities and addresses still makes Milwaukee's overvote an order of magnitude greater than individual fraud. Considering that, and the very minimal efforts to toss those committing election fraud in the slammer, I suspect that the 2006 numbers from a less-than-nonpartisan State Elections Board is off by a factor of at least 5. Morever, the SEB did not attempt to calculate the other methods of fraud.
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