Update: See Voter Database Glitches Could Disenfranchise Thousands (Kim Zetter) and J.B. Van Hollen's amusing Protecting the right to vote. "A recent report from the Academies of Sciences noted that 'many (if not most) of the matching procedures used by the states have been developed on the basis of intuitive reasoning without further systematic validation or mathematically rigorous analysis, do not reflect the state of the art in matching techniques, and have not been validated in the market, scientifically, or otherwise.'"
- Kim Zetter, Wired Magazine

Van Hollen writes accurately that, "Among (the Help America Vote Act of 2002) HAVA's mandates is that each state maintain an accurate and regularly updated statewide computerized voter registration system ... ."

That's a good one: A GOP AG worrying himself silly about voting rights.

Van Hollen writes accurately that, "Among (the Help America Vote Act of 2002) HAVA's mandates is that each state maintain an accurate and regularly updated statewide computerized voter registration system ... ."

Van Hollen does not mention that he is calling for the partisan GOP to decide how and when the federally-mandated state voter list is implemented and maintained on the state level in Wisconsin, and not the non-partisan GAB.

Simply put, Van Hollen is a liar and partisan acting in the despicable tradition of suppressing voters whose preference his party does not care for.

Van Hollen knows fully well that the GAB's decision, "... not to adopt a rule flagging voters on the poll list if the discrepancy had not been resolved before an election. The proposed rule would have required voters whose information did not match DOT records to provide identifying information before voting or to vote on a provisional ballot, which requires voters to provide follow-up information in order to have their votes counted ..." was made in the interests of following HAVA's mandates to maintain an accurate voting list and that the DOT's list is not reliable. [That's why four of six GAB Board members would be casting provisional ballots were they to show up at the ballot box tommorow with the GOP's proposed rule in place.]

An accurate list not what Van Hollen wants. He's looking for provisional ballots, long lines and confusion. In a word: Suppression.

The Wisconsin Attorney's General's attempt to frustrate and suppress an expected record voter turn-out is drawing the heat from a wide cross section of Wisconsin citizens.

It's not just the bloggers.

Opposition to vote suppression includes the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB), the Democratic Party and even the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The GOP knows the only way it will win Wisconsin is to frustrate the efforts of voters to: Vote.

And it knows the score and inning: The GOP needs Wisconsin to reach 270 electoral votes in November.

As the Capital Times writes:

When Republicans gathered in St. Paul for their national convention at the start of September, former White House political czar Karl Rove met with the Wisconsin delegation. Rove, who has been repeatedly implicated in a drive by the Bush White House to get U.S. attorneys to take steps to make it harder for minority voters and new voters to cast ballots, counseled the Wisconsin Republicans that they would need to go to extraordinary means to win the battleground state for party presidential nominee John McCain this year.

Just days after returning from the Republican convention, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a co-chair of the McCain campaign in Wisconsin, took an action that a leading state legislator suggests could "undermine democracy" going into the election about which Rove expressed so much concern.

Van Hollen has sued the state Government Accountability Board, seeking to review -- and potentially disqualify -- the names of as many as 1 million eligible voters whose names appear on the state's poll list.

For more information:

Democratic Party asks to Intervene in Voter Suppression Lawsuit

Democratic Party Briefs

J.B. Van Hollen vs. Government Accountability Board et al
Dane County Case Number 2008CV004085

WI State Journal: State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen should be disqualified from a controversial lawsuit against state election officials because he ignored lawyers' ethics rules, according to a (GAB) filing expected to be made in the case.