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Let's have a brief conversation about Wisconsin voting with 2 articles that just came out this week. Let's start with this article that explains that 80% of voters who indicated they were indefinitely confined in 2020 had *already* submitted a photo ID. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/01/25/most-indefinitely-confined-voters-have-already-produced-their-ids/6673057002/
Why is this important? The claim (false!) was made that voters designated themselves as indefinitely confined to avoid having to show photo ID. Clearly not true! Members of the legislature are claiming that they need to 'tighten' rules for claiming this status.
One proposal is that you cannot be indefinitely confined unless you can't leave you home without assistance. This is a very myopic view of various conditions (age/infirmity) that can manifest in different ways. What if you can go places but can't wait in line?
What if you can go places on some days, but not others? Also, think of how grotesque it could be to have to explain (apparently in some detail) your private condition to your municipal clerk in order to be allowed a rather basic accommodation?
Here's the next article: Of all of the thousands of complaints made about supposed voting fraud in Wisconsin, only one complaint (about 42 people) could be *potentially* verified. https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/in-thousands-of-complaints-about-wisconsin-election-few-that-could-be-substantiated/article_e7f37ef6-4072-536c-aea6-4427de4fcc99.html
The one *possible* complaint is that up to 42 people may have died before their vote was counted. Is that normal? Why yes, yes it is. Sometimes people send in their absentee ballots and then die. The system tries to catch those ballots before they are counted, but
naturally some get through, particularly people who die very close to election day. Also, did you know that there are lots of people with the same name and birthday? Counterintuitive, I know, but it's a thing. So the people listed might be dead, but they also might not be.
Did you know - some states allow ballots to be counted even if the voter dies before election day? Wisconsin isn't one of them, but it's an interesting fact. This is a state-level preference.
But what are we talking about? 42 votes out of approximately 3.3 million votes cast with a margin of about 20,000 votes in Biden's favor. And - if someone did cast a vote in the name of someone who died (which allegedly happened in Cedarburg), those people will be caught.
And when caught, I entirely expect them to be prosecuted. But if we look at the numbers, we have a possible fraud rate of 0.0012727%. So - no - Wisconsin's election was NOT compromised by election fraud.
Wisconsin's election was extremely well run, we had a recount in the two largest cities that confirmed the outcome, we completed machine audits that confirmed the tally. Our 1,850 municipal clerks and 72 county clerks did an amazing job during a raging pandemic.
So Rand Paul - and all the other legislators claiming 'voter fraud' in Wisconsin as a call to overturn our democratic institutions, storm the capitol, hang the VP, and assassinate the speaker need to not be given platforms to spout these lies.
Instead, let's have good conversations about how we can make voting easier for all Americans, how we can address racial bias in the administration of elections. And we need to have those conversations based on facts - not hysteria.
Because we can improve how we vote - but those improvements need to be to help all Americans equally access the right to vote. Because right now not all Americans have that equal right. So let's get to work. /fin
