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Partisan Taskmasters and an Election Task Force
The attorney general’s voting shenanigans continue

AFTER A WEEK OF EVASIVE ANSWERS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, REPORTERS FINALLY CONFIRMED WHAT MANY ALREADY EXPECTED—THAT GOP LAWYERS COM- MUNICATED WITH HIGH-RANKING DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE OFFICIALS ABOUT THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SUIT ONLY WEEKS BEFORE IT WAS FILED.

B Y C O R Y L I E B M A N N

Those looking for voterfraud in Wisconsin may want to start with the top elected official at the Department of Justice.

Two weeks ago, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen filed a frivolous lawsuit against the state’s Government Accountability Board (GAB), a move that could greatly compromise the November election.

Federal law requires each state to match its voter registration list with other state records, such as the Department of Transportation’s database. Those matches are already taking place. But Van Hollen is suing the GAB because he wants them to go back retroactively to 2006. It has been estimated that the attorney general’s proposed rule could complicate voting for as many as a million legitimate voters simply because of clerical errors, a missing middle initial or the listing of an old address on a driver’s license. That point was driven home when four of the six retired judges on the GAB board failed a perfect match themselves.

Last week Michael Horne looked at Van Hollen’s own voting registration information and reported the results on his blog (see Expresso’s “Blog of the Week,” page 16). He found potential problems because of Van Hollen’s various uses of his own name and initials.

One can only wonder if the attorney general’s name will be flagged, his vote challenged, and if he will be kept from casting a regular ballot in November.

Using Official Offices for Partisan Gain

Van Hollen has rightfully had his motives questioned because he only filed his frivolous suit after the state Republican Party failed to convince the GAB to enact the unnecessary rule. Van Hollen is not only the highest-ranking Republican in the state, but he is also the co-chair for the John McCain presidential campaign in Wisconsin. A successful Van Hollen lawsuit would help the McCain campaign in Wisconsin because it would complicate voting mostly for groups of people that are not likely to support him: new voters.

But, incredibly, Van Hollen insists that his motives are completely pure. One Wisconsin Now has repeatedly called on Van Hollen to recuse himself from any election-related legal matters because of his very obvious conflicts, but he has thus far refused to step away from the partisan lawsuit.

After a week of evasive answers from the Department of Justice (DOJ), reporters finally confirmed what many already expected—that GOP lawyers communicated with high-ranking Department of Justice officials about the substance of the suit only weeks before it was filed. Republican Party lawyer Chris Mohrman admitted that he did in fact communicate with Van Hollen’s lawyers prior to Van Hollen taking the extraordinary step of suing the GAB, an entity that he also is supposed to defend.

If there was any doubt left that this was a partisan lawsuit at its core, it was eliminated earlier this week when the GOP announced its intent to intervene in the case. What´s more, Republican Party Chair Reince Priebus admitted Monday to having conversations with Van Hollen´s top aide prior to the suit being filed.

Over a week and a half ago, upon learning of the lawsuit, One Wisconsin Now submitted an open records request to the DOJ for any and all records of DOJ communication with Republican lawyers

VAN HOLLEN continued on next page >>

J.B. Van Hollen