Romney Co-Chair: Romney Would Have ‘Absolutely’ Won Wisconsin With Voter ID Law

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

In an interview with Milwaukee’s ABC affiliate, the Romney campaign’s Wisconsin co-chair, state Sen. Alberta Darling (R), suggested that her candidate would have won Wisconsin but for the fact that the state’s voter ID law was declared unconstitutional by a state court:

HOST: Do you think photo ID would have made any difference in the outcome of this election?

DARLING: Absolutely, I think so. We’re looking at all different kinds of precincts and all sorts of same-day registrations and I know people will go “oh, we don’t have fraud and abuse in our elections,” but what can’t we have voter ID when the majority of the people in Wisconsin wanted it. We passed it. The governor signed it. Why should one judge in Dane County be able to hold it up?

Watch it:

There is a simple answer to Darling’s question about why voter ID cannot exist in Wisconsin — the state constitution does not allow it. Under the Wisconsin Constitution, “[e]very 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,” regardless of whether or not they have an ID.

But, more importantly, Darling’s suggestion that the only thing standing in between Romney and Wisconsin’s ten electoral votes was a law targeting the virtually non-existent problem of voter fraud at the polls is ridiculous. President Obama currently leads in Wisconsin by more than 200,000 votes. So Darling is suggesting that 200,000 people somehow managed to vote twice without anyone noticing — or perhaps that one person voted 200,001 times. Either one would require a conspiracy so massive it would make Fox Mulder blush.

In reality, a study of the 2004 election in Wisconsin found that of the approximately 3 million votes cast, “only seven were declared invalid—all of which were cast by felons who had finished their sentences and didn’t realize they were still barred from voting. As a result,Wisconsin’s overall fraud rate came in at a whopping 0.00023 percent.”

EXCLUSIVE: Romney Campaign Training Poll Watchers To Mislead Voters In Wisconsin

 By Scott Keyes/Think Progress

Mitt Romney’s campaign has been training poll watchers in Wisconsin with highly misleading — and sometimes downright false — information about voters’ rights.
Documents from a recent Romney poll watcher training obtained by ThinkProgress contain several misleading or untrue claims about the rights of Wisconsin voters. A source passed along the following packet of documents, which was distributed to volunteers at a Romney campaign training in Racine on October 25th. In total, eight such trainings were held across the state in the past two weeks and 17 since late September.
One blatant falsehood occurs on page 5 of the training packet, which informed poll watchers that any “person [who] has been convicted of treason, a felony, or bribery” isn’t eligible to vote. This is not true. Once a Wisconsin voter who has been convicted of a felony completes his or her sentence, that person is once again eligible to vote.
The training also encouraged volunteers to deceive election workers and the public about who they were associated with. On page 3 of the packet, Romney poll workers were instructed to hide their affiliation with the campaign and told to sign in at the polls as a “concerned citizen” instead. As Kristina Sesek, Romney’s legal counsel who just graduated from Marquette Law School last year, explained, “We’re going to have you sign in this election cycle as a ‘concerned citizen.’ We’re just trying to alleviate some of the animosity of being a Republican observer up front.”
This packet could cause major problems if Republican observers across the state try to enforce such wrong and misleading information on Election Day. Even if they simply slow the voting process down, this could discourage voters waiting in line and drive drown turnout.
Here are four misleading or incorrect pieces of information distributed by the Romney campaign:

CLAIM: Any “person [who] has been convicted of treason, a felony, or bribery” isn’t eligible to vote. (Page 5)	FACT: Once a person who has been convicted of a felony completes his or her sentence, including probation and fines, that person is eligible to vote.
CLAIM: Page 8 lists 10 items as “The ONLY Acceptable Forms of “Proof of Residency”.	FACT: The list used is incomplete. There are many other documents people can use to prove residency that are not included, such as letters from public schools, student loan papers, correspondence with a Native American tribe in Wisconsin, vehicle registration, and food stamp correspondances. In addition, the list fails to mention that homeless voters may use an affidavit from a public or private social service agency as proof of residency.
CLAIM: “If a handicapped voter is unable to come into the polls to vote, an assistant can deliver the ballot to the voter if the CEI verifies the elector’s proof of residency.” (Page 10)	FACT: Under Wisconsin law, the CEI (Chief Election Inspector) does not have to verify proof of residency so long as the voter is registered.
CLAIM: “Election Observers should not assist [voters].” (Page 10)	FACT: A voter can ask for assistance from anyone, including a poll watcher, so long as the voter initiates the request and does not engage in electioneering.

Here are the documents in full:


Romney Volunteer Observer Training

Update

This post originally stated that it was incorrect for Wisconsin residents to be asked for photo ID at the polls. The state’s photo ID law was indeed struck down and is not in place for this election, but for Wisconsin voters who want to register on Election Day, one of the possible proof of residency documents is an identification card that must have a photo on it. (Non-photo documents are also accepted, such as a bank statement or a pay stub.) We have updated the post to correct the error.

Update

After publishing this story, the original links to the Romney campaign’s schedule of poll watcher trainings was changed to private. We have added new links from other Republican sites that show the training schedule in full.

Obama is pulling ahead in the battleground state of Wisconsin. Here’s why.

By The Christian Science Monitor

The independent voter, perhaps upset by Mitt Romney’s recent remarks and his attacks on President Obama, appears to be behind a shift in polling numbers in Wisconsin that indicate Mr. Obama is pulling ahead there.

Wisconsin is among a handful of battleground states in the November presidential election. This summer, the fight appeared to be neck and neck in the state, and before the national conventions of both parties, Obama edged Mr. Romney by merely one or two percentage points.

Now, more than half of Wisconsin voters are favoring Obama, according to several new polls this week. And it’s not necessarily because Republicans are suddenly switching from red to blue, says Charles Franklin, polling director for the Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.

The president is gaining independents at Romney’s expense, Mr. Franklin says in a video posted on the university website. A poll for the school, released Wednesday, shows Obama with a 54 to 45 percent advantage among Wisconsin independents, compared with 38 to 43 percent in August.

Overall in the state, the school’s poll finds that Obama has a 14-point lead over Romney, 54 to 40 percent. Obama’s lead against Romney was just three points in August.

“Those shifts among independents are the biggest single driving force behind those results,” he says.

One theory is that Romney’s attacks on Obama for the economic downturn may not be taking root in Wisconsin. Marquette’s polling shows 55 percent of Wisconsin voters blame the recession on President Bush, while 30 percent say it is Obama’s fault.

“The problem for the Romney campaign is to convince voters that it is all about the economy and it’s Obama’s fault. So far, the public thinks largely it’s George Bush’s fault,” Franklin says.

Results from Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, N.C., also indicate that Wisconsin independents are shying away from Romney. In a PPP poll released Thursday, 39 percent of such voters said Romney’s unscripted comments about the “47 percent” of Americans who don’t pay income taxes made them less likely to vote for him in November. By comparison, 20 percent of independent voters in the state were encouraged by the comments and considered them a positive.

Obama’s current lead among independents in Wisconsin is 52 to 43 percent, according to the poll. Overall, the poll shows Obama enjoying a seven-point lead in the state against Romney, 52 to 45 percent. Last month, the president and Romney were just a single point apart.

“Wisconsin’s looking like much less of a swing state than it did a month or even a week ago. Voters there are warming up to Obama, and Romney’s not making a terribly good impression right now,” said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, in a statement released Thursday.

In a third poll released this week about Wisconsin – by Quinnipiac University, CBS News, and The New York Times – Obama leads Romney by six points, 51 to 45 percent. In August, Obama’s lead was just six points.

Politico identifies Wisconsin as one of nine battleground states this election – even though voters there have not voted for a Republican president since 1984. Obama won the state by 14 points in 2008. Since then, however the state has produced many rising stars in the Republican Party: Gov. Scott Walker; Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney’s running mate; and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus.

Obama’s campaign staff in Wisconsin is actively recruiting deputy field organizers from Chicago and elsewhere to give the campaign a boost during its last six weeks. And both presidential campaigns are spending significant ad dollars in the state: After the national conventions, each has now bought a second week of air time in the state, with Obama outspending Romney this week $353,000 to $205,000, CNN reports.

“Super PACs” such as Restore Our Future, which supports Romney, and Priorities USA Action, which supports Obama, are already heavily investing in television airtime in Wisconsin.

Romney is not yet scheduled to make an appearance in the state this week or next, but his wife, Ann Romney, held a rally Thursday morning at Marquette University.

Obama is scheduled to host a campaign event at Henry Maier Festival Park in Milwaukee late Saturday afternoon. That night, he will host a fundraiser and round-table discussion at the Milwaukee Theatre, where he’ll be joined by Baseball Hall of Fame great Hank Aaron. Cost for the round table is $25,000, while a general reception costs a minimum of $250 each.

Wi results don't tell whole story

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Wisconsin And Maryland Show Romney Still Struggling To Win Over Lower-Income Voters

By Alex Seitz-Wald/Think Progress

As ThinkProgress has previously noted, exit polls from the states that have held primaries thus far show that Romney wins among wealthy voters, and does less well among middle- and working-class voters.

This trend continued in last night’s primaries. Even though he won both Maryland and Wisconsin, the results were uneven when broken down by income. Romney’s vote share increases as income goes up, and vice versa. He captured big majorities of the wealthiest voters, but was unable to break 50 percent among those making under $100,000. Exit polls from the two states:

It’s no wonder everyone seems to agree he “favors the rich,” according to a CNN poll.