The Kloppenberg vote recount and Wisconsin's Voter ID Bill

Proponents of Wisconsin's Voter ID Bill say combating voter fraud, no matter how rare, is a good thing.

Voter fraud is extremely rare. Atty. Gen. Van Hollen investigated the 2008 election and found only 11 illegally cast votes, out of more than 3 million. That is 99.9996% free of fraud.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau says the bill will cost more than $5.7 million to implement, and perhaps $2 million a year going forward.

I believe the recount of the Supreme Court election between David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenberg was a bargain.

Every vote is precious and needs to be correctly counted. Voting is inconvenient; enough so that many voters don’t bother to vote.

On April 6 we were told that Kloppenberg won by 204 votes. That evening the Waukesha County Clerk surprised us with 14,315 uncounted votes; other counties also added 3,039 more votes. Kloppenberg prudently requested a recall. Prosser said this was a frivolous waste of taxpayer dollars. Au contraire, the recount discovered 1,054 additional votes, 64.8% of which were cast for Kloppenberg.

The recount did not change the election results, but it demonstrates how sloppy our voting process is. How can we not count 1,054 votes? How can Waukesha County and other counties discover 17,354 votes two days after the election? Why would this not disenfranchise voters?

The recount was estimated by Associated Press to cost around $261,000. It is regrettable that our vote counters are so sloppy that this expense was required. That’s hardly the fault of either candidate. Citizens deserve for their votes to be accurately counted.

We spent $261,000 to discover 1,054 votes. The Voter ID bill will cost millions of dollars to protect against a very small number of illegal votes. That’s money poorly spent. Trust the voters, and prosecute the few cheaters.