BREAKING: GAB says no vote fraud in Wisconsin

This may not be the officially published position of Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board. But it is the mindset of their staffers.

My leftist friend working in the cesspool of Wisconsin government reports that his breakroom buddies from the GAB's Election Division say that voter fraud in Wisconsin "is virtually non-existent when compared to the number of voters." They have also told him over donuts and coffee that "voter registration discrepancies never have been proven to lead to voter fraud." These public servants are more concerned with "voter suppression" that voter fraud.

Other than the Black Panthers, who was suppressing voters this year? News reports say that 2008 voter turnout was the "best in generations." This record turnout was led by African-Americans, with white Republican voting lagging 2004 turnout. There was even that black gentleman bragging to CNN about voting three times. From this I conclude that those Panthers were pretty damn effective in suppressing the white vote. Investigate THAT, GAB.

With the mindset of these hacks, why does the Election Division still exist? They have no interest in understanding and enforcing Wisconsin's election statutes. Jim Doyle can start here in making up that $3 Billion budget shortfall.

Nevermind these poll watcher reports from Milwaukee's inner city. There is nothing to see here, please move along.

What voting in Wisconsin means for college students and their parents

We have already established that non-resident students living in university residence halls in Wisconsin cannot legally register and vote in Wisconsin. This does not contradict the wording of Section 6.10, Elector Residence, of the Wisconsin Statutes.

(4) The residence of an unmarried person sleeping in one ward and boarding in another is the place where the person sleeps. The residence of an unmarried person in a transient vocation, a teacher or a student who boards at different places for part of the week, month or year, if one of the places is the residence of the person’s parents, is the place of the parents’ residence unless through registration or similar act the person elects to establish a residence elsewhere.

For voter registration purposes, Paragraph 6.10 (a) requires that a Wisconsin residence must be “the place where the person’s habitation is fixed, without any present intent to move.” Because UW dorm contracts are for only nine months of any year, they cannot honestly be elected as a student’s permanent Wisconsin residence.

NB – I received feedback on my previous post from a law professor. He said that while voting by these students is illegal, it is not fraud unless they were aware of the requirements for residency when they register or vote.
Students: If you have read this far, you are now aware of the residency requirements for voting in Wisconsin. You will be committing fraud if you are a dorm occupant and elect to register and vote at your temporary college address.

Other requirements of Wisconsin residency

Notwithstanding the above discussion, when a student elects to register and vote at his or her college address, the clock begins on several other obligations for Wisconsin residents. Michael Krauss notes several of these possible ramifications in this NRO piece.

But even if an honest student has suddenly acquired the intention of residing indefinitely in his college town, does he understand the legal implications of a residence change? Where is the student filing her income-tax return (will she be liable for another state’s tax)? Is the student claimed as a dependent on her parents’ return (if so, it is hard to have a separate legal residence)? Does the student have a residence-dependent scholarship (some require that recipients reside in a particular town or state) that might be imperiled by a change of residence? Would the student’s automobile or health-insurance coverage be affected by a change in residence, especially if the student is covered by her parents’ policy?

Here is a look at some of the these implications for students registering to vote in Wisconsin.

Taxes

A student declaring herself or himself a Wisconsin resident will need to address two changes in their tax status. First, they are required to follow Wisconsin law for filing income tax return as a full-year Wisconsin resident. Second, and with more dramatic ramifications, they can no longer be claimed as a dependent on their parents’ tax returns.

Filing of Wisconsin full-year resident taxes will probably be inconsequential to most students. The tax rates for low income individuals in Wisconsin are so minuscule that many students will see little change in Wisconsin taxes versus their previous state of residence. They may even be exempt from filing a Wisconsin return.

However, the parents of these students need to be aware that the IRS has a test for determining if a child may be claimed as a dependent. The IRS Tax Tutorial for evaluating the dependent status of a child includes this residency test which must be satisfied.

Residency Test — Qualifying Child
To meet this test, the child must:

Have lived with you for more than half of the year or
Meet one of the exemptions listed below:

• Temporary absences — illness, education, business, vacation, or military service
• Death or birth of child — a child who was born or died during the year

Once a student establishes their primary residence at a location away from their parent’s home in order to vote, the IRS does not allow the parent to legally claim their child as a dependent on their tax return. This is true for both resident and non-resident students attending college in Wisconsin.

With a statewide database of registered voters, it would be simple for the IRS to begin checking claimed dependents against the established residence of these individuals.

Health insurance

Dependent status for tax and health insurance purposes goes hand-in-hand. If a student cannot pass the IRS residency test, their parents cannot claim them as a dependent for health insurance without committing insurance fraud. The student will need to purchase their own health insurance policy.

That vote for in Wisconsin hope and change is starting to get expensive, isn’t it?

Driver and vehicle registration

Registering to vote in Wisconsin starts the clock ticking on other requirements. Upon registering to vote, these students have 60 days to obtain a Wisconsin driver's license.

Other drivers new to Wisconsin are required to apply for a Wisconsin driver license within 60 days of establishing residency.

Things are less lenient for registering your vehicle in Wisconsin.

First things first:
When you become a Wisconsin resident, you must obtain Wisconsin registration (license plates) for your vehicle within two days of moving here. We cannot give credit for unused registration on your previous state’s license plate.

Similarly, your automobile insurance will need to be amended to correctly reflect your Wisconsin address. A change in insurance rates will probably occur with that change of address. Please check with your friendly insurance agent to determine time limits for reporting your address change.

Enforcement

Although there is no coordinated effort to enforce these other obligations of residence that are required upon registering to vote in Wisconsin, with the online voter registration database it would be simple enough to check. It is in Wisconsin’s best interests to enforce requirements for income taxation, driver and vehicle registration as a means to increase revenues to the State Treasury.

Health and automobile insurers have an interest in identifying students who are no longer qualified to be covered by their parents' coverage. Proof of residency could include a check of the voter database as a telltale for refusing coverage of these college age children.

A scab worth picking

I am still not over my obsession with non-resident UW students committing vote fraud by registering and voting in Wisconsin. This is despite the fact that Wisconsin statutes specifically allow them to register and vote here.

The Wisconsin Legislature has gamed the State’s voting laws in order to encourage voting by non-resident students (D-IL) in Wisconsin elections. In doing so, they ignore and contradict other sections of the voting laws; as well as regulations regarding driver registration, residency rules for the state universities, requirements for filing Wisconsin taxes, and IRS rules for claiming dependents.

The reason for my obsession

In the last two presidential elections, Wisconsin was carried by the Democratic candidate by tight margins.

Gore by 5,708 votes in 2000
Kerry by 11,384 votes in 2004

When compared to the 2007-08 UW System non-resident student population of 34,361, voting by non-resident students in Wisconsin could easily have made the difference in each election. These non-resident student voters may throw Wisconsin to Obama in 2008.

Simple English

Before looking at the law, let me make one thing perfectly clear: You can have only one residence at any one time. That residence is not the hotel room, timeshare, cruise ship cabin, temporary apartment or dormitory room where you stay for part of the year. Your residence is what it is. It is the place that you call home.

You do not get to arbitrarily chose where your residence is in order to meet the rules for a special circumstance, such as registering to vote, while ignoring the other obligations associated with establishing your residence, such as obtaining a driver’s license.

For college students the residency test is pretty simple. Their home is the place where they live when they are not in school during the summer. If they stay in their apartment near campus in Madison, that is their home. But if they pack up and return to Mommy’s house when classes end in May, their residence is in Naperville, not Madison.

If fact, this circumstance is recognized by Wisconsin's Department of Revenue, and is even used as an example in it's Publication 122.

Example 2: You graduated from high school in Minnesota where you lived with your parents. In August of 2007, you moved to Wisconsin to attend the University of Wisconsin. You do not plan to remain in Wisconsin after you complete your course of study at the university. You do not take any steps to abandon your Minnesota residence or to acquire a new residence in Wisconsin. You are a nonresident of Wisconsin for 2007.

The answer to this test also has consequences as to the state the student must file taxes in and whether their parents may claim them as dependents. Those details will be discussed in a later episode.

Ask the UW

Because I am concerned with the resident status of college students, the rules of the University of Wisconsin System have some relevance. The UW has it figured out. It is not a matter of choice or "election," they have hard and fast rules with a rational basis behind them. Section 36.27(2)(d) of the Statutes is a concise summary.

In determining bona fide residence at the time of the beginning of any semester or session and for the preceding 12 months the intent of the person to establish and maintain a permanent home in Wisconsin is determinative. In addition to representations by the student, intent may be demonstrated or disproved by factors including, but not limited to, timely filing of a Wisconsin income tax return of a type that only full-year Wisconsin residents may file, voter registration in Wisconsin, motor vehicle registration in Wisconsin, possession of a Wisconsin operator's license, place of employment, self support, involvement in community activities in Wisconsin, physical presence in Wisconsin for at least 12 months preceding the beginning of the semester or session for which the student registers, and, if the student is not a U.S. citizen, possession of a visa that permits indefinite residence in the United States. Notwithstanding par. (a), a student who enters and remains in this state principally to obtain an education is presumed to continue to reside outside this state and such presumption continues in effect until rebutted by clear and convincing evidence of bona fide residence.

Although the UW is abundantly clear and rational as to who is resident and who is a non-resident, the legislature provides an irrational and arbitrary loophole in the voting laws.

6.10 Elector residence.
(12) Student status shall not be a consideration in determining residence for the purpose of establishing voter eligibility.

Nice try, but this does not override the definition of “residence” in the remainder of Section 6.10 and, by the way, violates the equal protection clause of the Wisconsin Constitution.

What the voting laws say

The Wisconsin Constitution states the following.

ARTICLE III. SUFFRAGE
Electors. Every United States citizen age 18 or older who is a resident of an election district in this state is a qualified elector of that district.

It further specifically allows the Legislature to define residency for voting.

Implementation. SECTION 2.
Laws may be enacted: (1) Defining residency.

So how has the Legislature defined residency?

6.02 Qualifications, general. (1) Every U.S. citizen age 18 or older who has resided in an election district or ward for 10 days before any election where the citizen offers to vote is an eligible elector.

6.10 Elector residence. Residence as a qualification for voting shall be governed by the following standards:

(1) The residence of a person is the place where the person’s habitation is fixed, without any present intent to move, and to which, when absent, the person intends to return.

(N.B. – This fits nicely with my rule of thumb student residency test.)

(4) The residence of an unmarried person sleeping in one ward and boarding in another is the place where the person sleeps. The residence of an unmarried person in a transient vocation, a teacher or a student who boards at different places for part of the week, month or year, if one of the places is the residence of the person’s parents, is the place of the parents’ residence unless through registration or similar act the person elects to establish a residence elsewhere.

(8) No person gains a residence in any ward or election district of this state while there for temporary purposes only.

There is a lot there, and the pieces must be put together in context to determine their meaning.

Student housing at the residential halls in the UW system is for a nine month period. The contract runs from mid-August through mid-May, at which time the students must vacate their dormitories. Within the context of paragraph (1) of Elector Residence, university sponsored housing cannot be "the place where the person’s habitation is fixed (...) and to which, when absent, the person intends to return." This is simply because every May, students living in residence halls are tossed to the street and must return to their permanent residence. For these students, that "place where the person’s habitation is fixed" is usually Mommy's house, and cannot be a UW residence hall which, by definition, is a transient habitation.

Paragraph (4) of Elector Residence confuses this distinction by allowing these students to "elect to establish a residence elsewhere" through voter registration. This election cannot be made by dormitory students, because the dorms are transient habitation and cannot rationally be elected as their residence. Furthermore, Paragraph (8) states that "No person gains a residence in any ward or election district of this state while there for temporary purposes only" and this includes students (Paragraph (12)).

Paragraph (4) also allows an elector to choose their residence in an irrational and arbitrary manner. The addition of the “unless through registration or similar act the person elects to establish a residence elsewhere” clause is unnecessary. If a student does take action to establish his or her residence at the location that they attend school, they are no longer “a student who boards at different places for part of the week, month or year.” They are a full-time resident of that place and no further distinction is needed in the Statute. Furthermore, any election of residence for voting is irrational and arbitrary unless all other actions to establish residency are completed (see the UW requirements for residency for the elements of a rational test).

UW officials facilitate vote fraud

The Wisconsin Statutes allow the following as proof of residence for college students.

6.34 Proof of Residence
6.34 (3) (a) 7. A university, college, or technical college fee or identification card that contains a photograph of the cardholder. A card under this subdivision that does not contain the information specified in par. (b) shall be considered proof of residence if the university, college, or technical college that issued the card provides a certified and current list of students who reside in housing sponsored by the university, college, or technical college to the municipal clerk prior to the election showing the current address of the students and if the municipal clerk, special registration deputy, or inspector verifies that the student presenting the card is included on the list.

This Statutory wording provides the University of Wisconsin with direction to facilitate voter fraud. It is already established that university residence halls cannot be the residence of the students that live in them for nine months of the year. By registering and voting by declaring their dorm room as their “residence,” these student have committed vote fraud. The university officials are parties to these fraudulent acts by certifying that these transient locations are the bona fide residence of the students.

What to do

The obvious way to attack the problem of fraudulent student voting is to challenge the registration of these voters. However this is unlikely to achieve success with partisan city clerks. A court challenge will likely be needed to resolve this issue. This would be a welcome second front in the war with ACORN.

Bring. It. On.

Coming soon

I have plans to address the consequences to the student and their parents of voter registration, but that's another episode.

A word of advance warning, the declaration of a university address as a student's residence will affect the ability of his or her parents to declare the student as a dependent. This is true for both resident and non-resident students.

Bleg

I need access to the a five point test to determine reasonableness from Omernik v. State, 64 Wis. 2d 6, 218 N.W.2d 734 (1974) for a future blogpost. Any help in locating this would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE:

Apparently I am not completely off the wall here. Michael Krauss at NRO points to some case law supporting my position and provides some relevant examples of the consequences of a student changing their residence.

Voter registration - Unknown obligations

Van Hollen sued the state Government Accountability Board Wednesday, saying it must crosscheck voter names with driver’s license records for some voters who registered to vote or changed their addresses since Jan. 1, 2006.

If I read this correctly, voters in Wisconsin must be registered at the same address as is on their driver's license (NB - That being the case, doesn't that bogus driver's license argument against Voter ID become moot? But that's another episode). How can that be, when all you need to register to vote is someone to vouch for you?

Proof of residence in the ward is required, such as an official Wisconsin driver's license or identification card with your address. If you do not have written proof, a qualified voter from your municipality can serve as your witness to verify your address.

Where does this driver's license requirement come from? Perhaps the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

I tried to find the Wisconsin Statute on voter eligibility requirements but was unable to use the State's search engine without crashing my browser. I settled on this description from the left wing League of Women Voters website.

Determining Your Legal Residence
You must be a legal resident of the place where you vote. Your legal residence is the fixed place where you live without plans to move. This fixed place is your residence even when you are away (vacation, hospital, etc.) as long as you plan to return. Students with a permanent residence in one community and a temporary residence at school may choose to vote at either place, but not both.

That seems curious to me. You generally cannot make different claims about the same subject to different government entities in order to suit your own purposes.

I had personal experience with this when I worked in Pennsylvania. I received a letter from the PA municipality demanding payment of a school tax. I wrote back telling them that my domicile was in Wisconsin, therefore I did not owe the hundred dollar tax. I never heard from them again.

But this is a two-edged sword. When I filed my state income taxes I could not claim my domicile was in PA, and consequently had to pay thousands more in taxes to Wisconsin.

For tax purposes Wisconsin Department of Revenue Publication 122 defines domicile thusly.

Domicile - Your domicile is your true, fixed, and permanent home where you intend to remain permanently and indefinitely and to which, whenever absent, you intend to return. It is often referred to as “legal residence.” You can be physically present or residing in one state but maintain a domicile in another. You can have only one domicile at any time.

Your domicile, once established, is never changed unless all three of the following occur or exist:
• You specifically intend to abandon your old domicile and take actions consistent with such intent, and
• You intend to acquire a new domicile and take actions consistent with such intent, and
• You are physically present in the new domicile.

Your domicile does not change if:
• You leave your state of domicile for a brief rest or vacation, or
• You leave your state of domicile to complete a particular transaction, perform a particular contract, or fulfill a particular engagement, but you intend to return to your state of domicile whether or not you complete the transaction, contract, or engagement

(...)

Example 2: You graduated from high school in Minnesota where you lived with your parents. In August of 2007, you moved to Wisconsin to attend the University of Wisconsin. You do not plan to remain in Wisconsin after you complete your course of study at the university. You do not take any steps to abandon your Minnesota residence or to acquire a new residence in Wisconsin. You are a nonresident of Wisconsin for 2007.

IRS publication 555 provides this further guidance.

You have only one domicile even if you have more than one home. Your domicile is a permanent legal home that you intend to use for an indefinite or unlimited period, and to which, when absent, you intend to return. The question of your domicile is mainly a matter of your intention as indicated by your actions. You must be able to show with facts that you intend a given place or state to be your permanent home. If you move into or out of a community property state during the year, you may or may not have community income.

Factors considered in determining domicile include:

• Where you pay state income tax,

• Where you vote,

• Location of property you own,

• Your citizenship,

• Length of residence, and

• Business and social ties to the community.

What does this mean to the thousands of Illinois and Minnesota youths attending college and voting in Wisconsin? Contrary to my first thoughts on the matter, registering and voting in Wisconsin is legal for these students.

However, by registering to vote in Wisconsin, they have changed their domicile from those other states to Wisconsin. Several obligations come with that, including paying state income taxes to Wisconsin, registering their motor vehicle in Wisconsin, obtaining a Wisconsin driver's license, and being counted by the U.S. Census Bureau as residents of Wisconsin.

I am left with a couple questions.

• Are Wisconsin voter registration requirements in compliance with FAVA if proof of residence is not required to register to vote in Wisconsin?
  
• Can Wisconsin voter registration records be cross checked to find voters who have not filed Wisconsin income tax returns or obtained Wisconsin driver's licenses? There is a revenue source here that needs to be tapped.
  

The moral of the story: Setting up a voting system in order to facilitate vote fraud can have unintended consequences.

More fraud from Madison

Madison - The lawsuit against the state's election authority could lead to a spike in provisional ballots, which an election expert said greatly increases the chances of a fight after Nov. 4 over who won the presidential race in Wisconsin.

Damn right! That's the whole effing point, you dumbass.

Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen sued the state this week to require more checks of voter information against driver's license records - a move that critics say could force people off the voter rolls and require them to cast provisional ballots. Provisional ballots are counted only when voters provide proof of residence by the next day.

We are tired of bending over every four years as the corrupt Doyle political machine repeatably slams those thousands of fraudulent votes in our ... ballot box. If the votes aren't valid the Doyle crooks want them hidden in the ballot box, where they cannot be found and cannot be challenged.

Here is the choice: Convenience for Doyle's fraudsters versus stopping his voter fraud.

Start the cross-checks now. Do not wait for the lawsuit to be ruled. These premeditated delays are no excuse for not getting the job done.

The most successful voter registration drive ever

The Great Big Radio Brain missed the obvious in his lengthy discussion of this article today.

Madison - A state election official said today a lawsuit by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen would affect more than 1 million voters, four times as many voters as the Department of Justice had estimated.

Also today, critics accused Van Hollen - a Republican serving as the state co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign - of filing the suit for partisan gain and trying to purge legitimate voters from poll lists.

Van Hollen sued the state Government Accountability Board Wednesday, saying it must crosscheck voter names with driver's license records for voters who registered to vote or changed their addresses on or after Jan. 1, 2006.

Such checks were required under federal law as of that date, but the board didn't start performing them until last month because of technical problems.

More than one million new voter registrations in less than three years in a state with only 4.25 million adults is beyond belief.

Are we supposed to believe that one-fourth of the adult population of Wisconsin registered to vote for the first time or re-registered after moving since the start of 2006? This happening even after the huge new voter registration drives of the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. No way is that possible. Frankly, I am beyond shocked.

If you examine the population data (do your own math, my source data is here) you'll find that less than 225,000 Wisconsin minors became of voting age since 01/01/2006. And less than 10,000 persons of voting age moved to the state since that date.

Here's your little sanity check, where did the more than 750,000 other new registered voters come from since the end of 2005?

The only answer that makes sense: Voter fraud on perhaps the most massive scale of all time.

Mr. Van Hollen, may we have that RICO investigation now?