Madison – State Representative Janel Brandtjen (R- Menomonee Falls) has received information from a concerned citizen regarding Wisconsin’s voter data. Justin Gavery provided Rep Brandtjen’s office with information regarding the Milwaukee County and Dane County active voter list issues. This information is extremely valuable because the $12,500 needed to access the data is prohibitive to the average citizen. Gavery’s comments are provided below and links to the data for Milwaukee and Dane Counties can be found on Rep Brandtjen’s legislative website.
Rep Brandtjen stated, “These age-old mistakes call into question the Electronic Registration Information Center’s (ERIC) ability to properly manage the voter data. Is it ironic that National Voter Registration Day brings more questions?”
Justin Gavery – Possible Issues and Errors:
“As you will see in the attached, several voter listings are possible issues in Milwaukee and Madison.
For Individuals (Electors): If your name is on this list, please check all information to see if it is accurate. You can contact your local Municipal Clerk, who can give you your voter registration application which you can also review. And to correct if necessary. If the registration statement is incorrect, then you might want to ask your Municipal Clerk to check with the Motor Vehicle Bureau or the U.S Post Office to find out if there is inconsistent data that requires correction and a corrected Registration statement.
For Clerks: The list is in Excel, and you can sort it by the municipality to find out the names relevant to your jurisdiction. We suggest that you check the names within your jurisdiction to identify whether the listing is correct or if there are errors. Statewide we have found 352,588 issues of one type or another out of the ~3.4 million Active registrants.
In any case, if there is an issue that you need help with, feel free to contact your local Municipal Clerk or your Wisconsin State Assembly representative. If you believe there is a severe issue, such as that someone else has been voting for you, contact either your local police or county sheriff. Please note that this information has come from a review of selective voting lists, including the Wisconsin Election Commission (“WEC”) Active Voting list and also the US Postal Service’s verified database. The WEC list we worked with is about a month old and so it is possible that WEC and or your local Municipal Clerk has corrected some of the errors. As in the case of all computer-originated lists with thousands of names, there will be errors, perhaps up to 10% of all listings. These will be due to recent updates, inaccurate and/ or obsolete information, computer error, clerical error or other causes. Please also note there will be some duplicates as the methods used look at an address from different angles. One irregularity might be picked up 1-3 times. Our goal in presenting this list is to improve the accuracy of our Wisconsin voting rolls.”
Justin Gavery can be contacted at justin_gavery@yahoo.com