John Fund, WSJ:

Last week Mike Sandvick, head of the Milwaukee Police Department’s five-man Special Investigative Unit, was told by superiors not to send anyone to polling places on Election Day. He was also told his unit — which wrote the book on how fraud could subvert the vote in his hometown — would be disbanded.

“We know what to look for,” he told me, “and that scares some people.” In disgust, Mr. Sandvick plans to retire. (A police spokeswoman claims the unit isn’t being disbanded and that any changes to the unit “aren’t significant.”)

In February, Mr. Sandvick’s unit released a 67-page report on what it called an “illegal organized attempt to influence the outcome of (the 2004) election in the state of Wisconsin” — a swing state whose last two presidential races were decided by less than 12,000 votes.

The report found that between 4,600 and 5,300 more votes were counted in Milwaukee than the number of voters recorded as having cast ballots. Absentee ballots were cast by people living elsewhere; ineligible felons not only voted but worked at the polls; transient college students cast improper votes; and homeless voters possibly voted more than once.

Much of the problem resulted from Wisconsin’s same-day voter law, which allows anyone to show up at the polls, register and then cast a ballot. ID requirements are minimal. If someone lacks any ID, he can vote so long as someone who lives in the same city vouches for him. The report found that in 2004 a total of 1,305 “same day” voters gave information that was declared “un-enterable” or invalid by election officials.

According to the report, this loophole was abused by many out-of-state workers for the John Kerry campaign. They had “other staff members who were registered voters vouch for them by corroborating their residency.”

The investigative unit believed at least 16 workers from the Kerry campaign, and two allied get-out-the-vote groups, “committed felony crimes.” But local prosecutors didn’t pursue them in part because of a “lack of confidence” in the abysmal record-keeping of the city’s Election Commission.

Pat Curley, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s chief of staff, told me he was very upset by the surprise release of the report. “I don’t believe all of the facts are necessarily accurate,” he said. Which ones? He only cited the report’s interpretation of state policy on homeless voters. He denies the mayor’s office had any role in disbanding the unit.

Mr. Sandvick says the problems his unit found in 2004 are “only the tip of the iceberg” of what could happen today. His unit has found out-of-state groups registering their temporary workers, a college dorm with 60 voters who aren’t students, and what his unit believes are seven illegal absentee ballots.

“The time to stop voter fraud is prior to when the questionable ballot is mixed in with all the valid votes,” he says. Former police captain Glenn Frankovis agrees: “This issue could be solved if [the police chief] would assign police officers to the polling locations as was customary about 20 years ago.” But election monitors are now viewed as “intimidating” in minority precincts and have been withdrawn.
Mr. Sandvick’s report concluded “the one thing that could eliminate a large percentage of the fraud” it found would be elimination of same-day voter registration (which is also in use in seven other states). It also suggested that voters present a photo ID at the polls, a requirement the U.S. Supreme Court declared constitutional this spring.

But weeks after the vote fraud report was released, Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold introduced federal legislation to mandate same-day registration in every state. He claimed the system had worked well in Wisconsin and if “we can bring more people into the process, [it] only strengthens our democracy.” Democrats tell me his bill is a top priority of the new Congress.

“They say voter fraud isn’t a problem,” notes Mr. Sandvick, “but after this election it may be all too clear it is.” Now that Mr. Sandvick is resigning from the force after a long, honorable career, let’s hope someone else is allowed to follow up on the spadework he’s done.

Meanwhile, a FOXNews report out of Philadelphia details allegations made by an Army vet that two Black Panthers with night sticks were blockading the entrance to a Philadelphia polling place, denying entry to potential McCain voters.

“By any means necessary” and “get in their faces” seems to be today’s “progressive” / New Left rallying cry.

Somebody forgot to tell these dusty political farts that the sixties ended, and that Shaft was just a movie. Written by a white man.

Guess I’ll go watch The Strawberry Statement and Getting Straight to get myself in the mood for the next 4 years. As long as we’re romanticizing radicalism, may as well have a young Eliot Gould and Candice Bergen take me on that trip…

(h/t Terry Hastings and Matt Heidt)

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update: More on the Black Panther allegations.