Wisconsin: U.S. House holds hearings on voter I.D.
AP reports: Requiring voters to show a photo identification card would disenfranchise minorities, the elderly and the poor, U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, told a congressional committee Monday.
But Rep. Mark Green, R-Green Bay, told the Committee on House Administration that a voter ID requirement is a simple way to restore people's trust in the integrity of elections.
The committee held the hearing in Milwaukee at Green's request to discuss problems from last year's presidential election in Wisconsin. ...
Sharon Robinson, the director of Milwaukee's Department of Administration, said many instances of voter irregularity in 2004 were more a result of administrative oversight than outright fraud. For example, some 4,600 more ballots were cast than voters tallied at the polls, but Robinson said poll workers sometimes forgot to tear up the pink voter numbers that kept count of voters for each ballot distributed. The result, she said, was that the same voter number might have been used more than once.
Moore asked Robinson whether a voter ID bill could prevent such administrative snafus in the future.
"Photo IDs would not have fixed the problem," Robinson said. She said the greater priority should be to provide effective and uniform training to poll workers. -- The Capital Times