Transcript of Jeff Wagner's segment with Jeff Stone
As a former history student, I prefer primary sources to secondary sources. I also know that, for whatever reason, many people will not click on multimedia files. So tonight I took a little time to listen to Jeff Wagner's interview with State Representative Jeff Stone, transcribing their conversation. Many, but not all, uh, umms, stutters, and repeated words have been edited out.
Jeff Wagner: ...the concern that many people, including myself have, that Wisconsin is ripe for voter fraud because we allow same day registration and we do not require people to prove who they are when they show up at the polls. We're joined right now by state representative Jeff Stone. Jeff, good afternoon.
Jeff Stone: Hi Jeff.
Wagner: Now you're, matter of fact, you were at the UW Green Bay-UWM game, right?
Stone: Yeah, it ended up being more of a blowout than anybody would have expected, I think.
Wagner: Who won?
Stone: Oh, uh, it was a big UWM win. There was some highlight reel footage by McCants and, uh, Joah Tucker that you'll see probably if you watch the sports this evening.
Wagner: Okay, well, uh, I appreciate you joining-I know you're just coming out of the game, and I appreciate you joining us. You are in the paper today, the, the Mayor is a little bit upset with you, you're raising questions about the voter verification process.
Stone: Well, I've been asking these same questions now since right after the 2000 election. If you remember, there were, umm, there were 3600, uh, people who registered at the polls in the year 2000 election that voted, and then when they were sent a verification card immediately after that election, uh, those cards were returned to the city of Milwaukee as undeliverable or no such person, and so I've been very, uh, interested to see what's going to happen this time around, and, and..
Wagner: ...right, and let me, let me put that in perspective. That's 3600. Keep in mind in the first presidential eleciton, in, in the, the Bush-Gore race, Al Gore won Wisconsin by just a little over 4000 votes, and so your talking about 3600 post cards that don't come back as to identifiable voters.
Stone: Exactly. It was, and that's in one community in the state, so easily um, the number exceeded the margin of victory in that race. Um, now, we're looking at-um, I think the thing that was most shocking to me, I've been following, I've been following up with the Election Commission, thing I wanna know how many people registered at the polls, how many of those cards have been sent out, and how many are coming back. Well they finally called me, um, earlier this week, and said that there had been 8300 people who registered at the polls, umm, and 7300 verification cards were sent out, so there were a 1000 people who voted and they had these cards for, that they didn't even, weren't even able to send the cards out because they're illegible, and they couldn't read the information, and get enough information to send the verification, which I thought was terrible enough. As soon as I put that press release out, they called me and said, no, that's, the numbers are ten times as big.
Wagner: Huh.
Stone: There's 83,000 people who registered at the polls, and there's 10,000 we can't contact. That's just unbelieveable.
Wagner: Now just to put it in perspective, that's, that 10,000 figure, these aren't cards that have been returned as undeliverable, right, these are cards they can't even send out because the information's so bad, right?
Stone: Exactly, and I, I think if, if the trend follows as we've seen before, we're going to see 10, 20, possibly even 30,000 of those cards that they did mail out that are going to be returned, and we're going to have just a tremendous number of votes that were cast that we can't account for the people that cast them. And I think that's just, uh, extremely detrimental to people's confidence in elections in this state overall.
Wagner: Now what's the reason you're being given for why they can't send out that, that 10,000, that they can't even mail them out to prove whether or not, ya know, somebody actually legitimately showed up to vote.
Stone: Well they said they're illegible, they said they, they used a term that some of them were duplicates. Now I don't know if that means the, and, and they haven't clarified that yet. Uh, which if you read the article you see that, uh, they're still trying to scrambling trying to come up with answers, but, umm, I don't know if that means they got two cards from the same person, or if they had cards filled out for people that were registered in other areas, but there is definitely a larger problem here that needs to be taken up, and I think it just points to a flaw in the way we cur-, that we have our elections structured currently, that there's no way to properly identify who's voting in our elections in this state right now.
Wagner: Well, and, as of, yeah, we still don't have an answer to all the, the phony addresses that were identified right before the election. Ya know, you had all these people who were registered to addresses that don't come back to valid addresses. We still don't have an answer as to how pervasive that problem is, either.
Stone: Well there were, you're exactly right. There were 37,000 of those addresses that were questionable, there's, um, and there was the agreement that was struck before the election that they were going to, uh, um, there were 5500 of those addresses that they were going to be checking at the polls, and ya know, all indications I have is that agreement was not lived up to on the part of Milwaukee Election Commission. So, ya know, there's just, it just is a problem that seems to be compounding the deeper you look into it.
Wagner: Ya know, what do you think ultimately is the answer? I mean, is voter ID one of the possible solutions to this?
Stone: Well, that's something that Scott Walker originally, uh, carried that mantle years ago. I've picked it up the last two sessions. Last session we put that on the Governor's desk and he vetoed it. Um, I have that bill now circulating, and I have a tremendous amount of co-sponsors in the Assembly, and my intent is to put that back on the Governor's desk, and I believe with all the other reforms that are being required under the Congressional guidance of the Help America Vote Act, I think now is the time for the Governor to step up and say we're going to fix elections in this state so they operate properly.
Wagner: If you read this story in today's Journal Sentinel, the response by the Chief of Staff to the Mayor, you get the impression that they think that you're-I'm paraphrasing a little bit-but you're just kind of being a nuisance, ya know, why is he going public with this, ya know, he should just, ya know, let us go about our business, not be putting out press releases, not be trying to call people's attention to this.
Stone: Yeah, I-and, ya know, I often times do my best to try to work with the City of Milwaukee to get answers, but I can't ignore, um, this type of, of problem, and just say, well we're going to be quiet about it. This is something that the public needs to be aware of, that we had major problems with the way these elections are administered, and I'm sorry I can't sit on that kind of information. And truthfully, if I wasn't pressing this issue, it wouldn't be talked about. And its just a responsibility you have, um, when it's taken me years to get the election commission to respond at all, then when they do give me information and I put it out, then they have to contact me and tell me, oh, it's actually ten times as bad. I think it just points to a lack of any, uh, ability to have any confidence in what the election commission is saying.
Wagner: Well the other interesting thing is, at least according to this story, these post cards, the ones that they were able to send out, it took them two months to send them out. I mean they didn't go out until like January 6th, right?
Stone: Exactly. Ya know, most-the State statute say it should happen immediately after the election. It took 2 months in Milwaukee. Now granted they had a tremendous number of voters who registered at the polls. About 32% of the voters in Milwaukee registered at the polls. I think that points to the need to have a system that works efficiently, and right now that's not happening.
Wagner: State Representative Jeff Stone, thanks so much for joining us, we appreciate it.
Stone: Thank you, Jeff.
Listen to the interview at My View of the World.
Jeff Wagner: ...the concern that many people, including myself have, that Wisconsin is ripe for voter fraud because we allow same day registration and we do not require people to prove who they are when they show up at the polls. We're joined right now by state representative Jeff Stone. Jeff, good afternoon.
Jeff Stone: Hi Jeff.
Wagner: Now you're, matter of fact, you were at the UW Green Bay-UWM game, right?
Stone: Yeah, it ended up being more of a blowout than anybody would have expected, I think.
Wagner: Who won?
Stone: Oh, uh, it was a big UWM win. There was some highlight reel footage by McCants and, uh, Joah Tucker that you'll see probably if you watch the sports this evening.
Wagner: Okay, well, uh, I appreciate you joining-I know you're just coming out of the game, and I appreciate you joining us. You are in the paper today, the, the Mayor is a little bit upset with you, you're raising questions about the voter verification process.
Stone: Well, I've been asking these same questions now since right after the 2000 election. If you remember, there were, umm, there were 3600, uh, people who registered at the polls in the year 2000 election that voted, and then when they were sent a verification card immediately after that election, uh, those cards were returned to the city of Milwaukee as undeliverable or no such person, and so I've been very, uh, interested to see what's going to happen this time around, and, and..
Wagner: ...right, and let me, let me put that in perspective. That's 3600. Keep in mind in the first presidential eleciton, in, in the, the Bush-Gore race, Al Gore won Wisconsin by just a little over 4000 votes, and so your talking about 3600 post cards that don't come back as to identifiable voters.
Stone: Exactly. It was, and that's in one community in the state, so easily um, the number exceeded the margin of victory in that race. Um, now, we're looking at-um, I think the thing that was most shocking to me, I've been following, I've been following up with the Election Commission, thing I wanna know how many people registered at the polls, how many of those cards have been sent out, and how many are coming back. Well they finally called me, um, earlier this week, and said that there had been 8300 people who registered at the polls, umm, and 7300 verification cards were sent out, so there were a 1000 people who voted and they had these cards for, that they didn't even, weren't even able to send the cards out because they're illegible, and they couldn't read the information, and get enough information to send the verification, which I thought was terrible enough. As soon as I put that press release out, they called me and said, no, that's, the numbers are ten times as big.
Wagner: Huh.
Stone: There's 83,000 people who registered at the polls, and there's 10,000 we can't contact. That's just unbelieveable.
Wagner: Now just to put it in perspective, that's, that 10,000 figure, these aren't cards that have been returned as undeliverable, right, these are cards they can't even send out because the information's so bad, right?
Stone: Exactly, and I, I think if, if the trend follows as we've seen before, we're going to see 10, 20, possibly even 30,000 of those cards that they did mail out that are going to be returned, and we're going to have just a tremendous number of votes that were cast that we can't account for the people that cast them. And I think that's just, uh, extremely detrimental to people's confidence in elections in this state overall.
Wagner: Now what's the reason you're being given for why they can't send out that, that 10,000, that they can't even mail them out to prove whether or not, ya know, somebody actually legitimately showed up to vote.
Stone: Well they said they're illegible, they said they, they used a term that some of them were duplicates. Now I don't know if that means the, and, and they haven't clarified that yet. Uh, which if you read the article you see that, uh, they're still trying to scrambling trying to come up with answers, but, umm, I don't know if that means they got two cards from the same person, or if they had cards filled out for people that were registered in other areas, but there is definitely a larger problem here that needs to be taken up, and I think it just points to a flaw in the way we cur-, that we have our elections structured currently, that there's no way to properly identify who's voting in our elections in this state right now.
Wagner: Well, and, as of, yeah, we still don't have an answer to all the, the phony addresses that were identified right before the election. Ya know, you had all these people who were registered to addresses that don't come back to valid addresses. We still don't have an answer as to how pervasive that problem is, either.
Stone: Well there were, you're exactly right. There were 37,000 of those addresses that were questionable, there's, um, and there was the agreement that was struck before the election that they were going to, uh, um, there were 5500 of those addresses that they were going to be checking at the polls, and ya know, all indications I have is that agreement was not lived up to on the part of Milwaukee Election Commission. So, ya know, there's just, it just is a problem that seems to be compounding the deeper you look into it.
Wagner: Ya know, what do you think ultimately is the answer? I mean, is voter ID one of the possible solutions to this?
Stone: Well, that's something that Scott Walker originally, uh, carried that mantle years ago. I've picked it up the last two sessions. Last session we put that on the Governor's desk and he vetoed it. Um, I have that bill now circulating, and I have a tremendous amount of co-sponsors in the Assembly, and my intent is to put that back on the Governor's desk, and I believe with all the other reforms that are being required under the Congressional guidance of the Help America Vote Act, I think now is the time for the Governor to step up and say we're going to fix elections in this state so they operate properly.
Wagner: If you read this story in today's Journal Sentinel, the response by the Chief of Staff to the Mayor, you get the impression that they think that you're-I'm paraphrasing a little bit-but you're just kind of being a nuisance, ya know, why is he going public with this, ya know, he should just, ya know, let us go about our business, not be putting out press releases, not be trying to call people's attention to this.
Stone: Yeah, I-and, ya know, I often times do my best to try to work with the City of Milwaukee to get answers, but I can't ignore, um, this type of, of problem, and just say, well we're going to be quiet about it. This is something that the public needs to be aware of, that we had major problems with the way these elections are administered, and I'm sorry I can't sit on that kind of information. And truthfully, if I wasn't pressing this issue, it wouldn't be talked about. And its just a responsibility you have, um, when it's taken me years to get the election commission to respond at all, then when they do give me information and I put it out, then they have to contact me and tell me, oh, it's actually ten times as bad. I think it just points to a lack of any, uh, ability to have any confidence in what the election commission is saying.
Wagner: Well the other interesting thing is, at least according to this story, these post cards, the ones that they were able to send out, it took them two months to send them out. I mean they didn't go out until like January 6th, right?
Stone: Exactly. Ya know, most-the State statute say it should happen immediately after the election. It took 2 months in Milwaukee. Now granted they had a tremendous number of voters who registered at the polls. About 32% of the voters in Milwaukee registered at the polls. I think that points to the need to have a system that works efficiently, and right now that's not happening.
Wagner: State Representative Jeff Stone, thanks so much for joining us, we appreciate it.
Stone: Thank you, Jeff.
Listen to the interview at My View of the World.
posted by Jib @ 10:42 PM
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