Voting Issues in Wisconsin

Instapundit has a pointer regarding voting issues in Milwaukee. Living in Milwaukee, I went to our local paper for the story. The story tells a tale of voters that have nonexistent addresses. Some of the instances seem to be typos, with handwritten cards with real addresses being typed into the city's system wrong. (One of my friends went to the polls only to find that someone had changed her first name from Melissa to Marian or something. They let her vote.) Other instances seem more sinister.

Of course, the real problem is that here we do not have to show our driver licenses at the polls if we are pre-registered. So, let me tell you the fool-proof system I encountered in Whitefish Bay, a suburb of Milwaukee. I stood in line at one of the 6 precincts in the Bay. When I got to the front of the line, a woman asked me for my address. I told her my address, and she flipped to the page and put her finger on my name. Then she asked me what my name was. I told her. She then gave me a pink piece of paper the size of a Post-It with a handwritten number on it. She wrote that number on her big book by my name. I handed the piece of paper to the man sitting next to her, about 8 inches away. He took the piece of paper and gave me a ballot with the same number on it. I voted.

One, I have no idea what the pink piece of paper added to the whole system. Second, I could have told her any address I wanted to and been anyone. I know lots of women in the Bay. (Or, I could have read the name upside-down.) I could have been someone different at every precinct. If I knew for sure that those women weren't going to vote, I don't think anyone would have ever caught me.