I just voted...

On his 10/5/04 Late Afternoon Show, Mark Belling, talk show host on Newstalk 1130 WISN, conducted a chilling interview of a woman, "Katie," who had witnessed blatant complicity by the City of Milwaukee Election Commission in WISCONSIN DEMOCRAT ELECTION FRAUD.

Belling's interviewee said that she overheard a city of Milwaukee election official encourage a registration operative to FORGE signatures on voter registration applications.

"Katie" related that on or about 10/4/04, she was in the office of the Milwaukee Election Commission. In walked an operative carrying a stack of voter registration applications, asking to file these forms. The applications were not signed by the person who had solicited them.

Katie said that an election commission clerk suggested to the operative just FORGE THE SIGNATURE of the person who had solicited the applications.

An outfit called the "New Voter Project" claims to be nonpartisan but is being bankrolled and staffed by leftists. The organization is already active in Wisconsin and already involved in trouble. Thousands of "voters" registered by this group in the last few weeks have submitted registration forms without the legally required proof of identification. This has forced village and city clerks all over the region to send out notices asking for the information.

Virtually none of the forms sent out by the local clerks to the shady registrants have been responded to. The only plausible explanation for that is that the "voters" not only aren't voters but aren't real people, either.

Here's the method to the New Voter Project madness. In Wisconsin, you can register to vote at the polls on Election Day. You have to produce identification when you register. But sending in a phony registration in advance puts you on the voter list before the election. Already-registered voters don't have to show any identification. By putting perhaps thousands of fake names on the voter lists, it will be possible for fraudsters to show up at the polls and simply claim to be the person who was already "registered."

One former employee of the New Voter Project has told me that many staffers simply took names out of the telephone book to fill out their daily quotas. He quit his job in fear there'd be a criminal investigation.

Now, the New Voter Project is turning in thousands of dubious voter registration forms and the organization is run by a woman who has already been linked to election fraud. Bush better get 52 percent of the actual vote in Wisconsin because at least 2 percent of the Kerry vote is going to come from cheaters.

So, what happens when the observers call the election invalid?

I'll second that caveat. My little monster was extremely squirmy and kept threatening to scoot under the curtain and be gone. As I was discussing the lack of paper trail with a poll worker she pounded me on the leg and said, "Mama, I'm not having ANY fun at ALL!!"

OK, so I'm mystified by your whole voting process. What on earth turned it into such a mess?! Or was it always such a mess, but people cared less?

This is how it goes here. Three or four weeks before the election, every Dutch citizen of voting age gets sent his voting card in the mail, with your name on it and with the address of your voting "bureau" (precinct?). Usually in some school or city government building or neighbourhood centre or library or whatever ... last time it was in the small IT company around the corner.

On election day (voting times, 7:30-20:00, I believe), you go there. If you live in a city, you dont ever have to walk more than five minutes - and there's rarely any line whatsoever, probably simply because there's enough of these precincts. You hand one of the three staffers your card. No voter card, no vote. If you came to the wrong precinct, you also do not get to vote there - but since the precincts are close to one another and there's rarely a line there, it's not a big deal to go to the right place after all. He tells your name to the second person, who checks it with their list of voters for the precinct (this way, there's always more persons involved). They keep the card, and check your name off. The third person hands you your ballot (or nowadays, points you to the computer). You vote - in the old days, by crossing the box in front of the name of your candidate on the ballot with the red pencil they gave you; nowadays by pushing the button in front of his name on the computer screen. Done.

Why do you have to register first in order to vote, in the first place, in America? Why don't all citizens just automatically get their voter card? I dont know of any other country where citizens first have to register separately in order to vote. Why are there such long lines? People waiting for 1,5, 2 hours, that's prepostorous! I only know that from the TV images when there's elections in some third world country. No wonder turnout is so low! Why all the different kinds of ballots? I know you combine different elections, but couldn't you make one separate, nationally uniform presidential ballot? And why, and why not - a dozen other questions that just boggle the mind of this foreigner!

One thing I gotta give to ya. Most voting districts here have switched from paper ballots to voting computers the last decade - and before concerned Democrats in America started discussing the lack of a paper trail, I hadnt even ever thought about it. Can't see why one couldnt have print-out slips or something, thats a good point. But otherwise voting here seems so infinitely ... simple, compared to your situations!

Can't say I know the exact answer, but I think the fact that the population of your country is roughly that of New York City's might have something to do with some of the differences.