Thursday, September 18, 2008

Our Very Own Katherine Harris

J.B. Van Hollen seems intent on becoming Katherine Harris. Unlike Harris's Florida, Wisconsin does not allow partisan officials to run our elections. We entrust that task to a politically independent agency under the direction of a nonpartisan board of retired judges.

That arrangement is obviously not to the liking of Van Hollen, who is the highest ranking elected Republican in the state and co-chairman of John McCain's presidential campaign in Wisconsin. He is suing the agency and the former judges who head it in an effort to get people kicked off the voter rolls. He insists it's necessary to protect us against voter fraud. He is undeterred by the fact that voter fraud is more rare than a financially stable investment bank. He is even less sensitive to the considerable collateral damage his crusade will do.

In his apparent zeal to emulate Katherine the Great, Van Hollen hardly waited for the ink on his lawsuit to dry before announcing that he is forming an "election fraud task force." It's hard to believe many voters will put much trust in a task force headed by someone so heavily invested in making sure John McCain is the next president.

Maybe Van Hollen doesn't care about that. Or maybe he's green with envy that Katherine Harris's deeds were the stuff of a made-for-HBO movie.

Who would play J.B. Van Hollen? I nominate Will Farrell.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Enforcing the law is the job of the AG.

Running elections according to the law is the job of the GAB.

When the GAB ignores the law, then the AG must act.

I could get some crayons and draw pictures for you if it will help.

Anonymous said...

The GAB is not ignoring the law. Van Hollen's lawsuit demands that the GAB do things that the federal law doesn't call for - such as prevent voters who are flagged by cross-checks from voting or require them to cast provisional ballots (that aren't immediately counted and sometimes are never counted). Put down your crayons and read the Help America Vote Act. Nowhere does it require election administrators to do what Van Hollen is trying to force the GAB to do.

Anonymous said...

Van Hollen wouldn't even pass the test he's trying to force the GAB to use in order to kick people off the voter rolls. Go here to see what I mean.