The invaluable Power Line today linked to a story about election fraud this last election in Milwaukee Wisconsin. A joint Federal / State investigation found that the number of ballots exceeded the number of voters by 4,609. As John Hinderaker of Power Line put it "There is no evident explanation for this other than ballot box stuffing."

Why should we care? Because John Kerry won Wisconsin by a mere 11,000 votes and the fraud investigation has yet to look at the suburbs of Milwaukee or other parts of the state. Further the investigators found over 200 felons voted illegally in Milwaukee, and over 100 voted twice or used fake names, addresses, or used the ID of a dead person. Investigators have focused on the over 70,000 people who registered to vote on election day in Milwaukee since the registration paperwork still existed and not on the over 200,000 other voters since Milwaukee's election records are in such bad shape they would not hold up in court! In other words the fraud could be far worse, but we will never know because of poor record keeping in this overwhelmingly Democrat city.

"U.S. Rep. Mark Green, a Green Bay Republican who has introduced a national photo ID requirement, said: 'People are having their faith in the election system shaken. This news will make it much, much worse.'" I hope that everyone who believes in honest government no matter what your political beliefs will realize our election system in this country is seriously broken. Requiring photo ID to vote is just one of many steps that need to be taken if we are to be confident in the election results. Minimum requirements for voter records would seem to be another.

As John Hinderaker wrote "it is only a matter of time until voter fraud determines the outcome of a Presidential election. (Indeed, this may well have happened in 1960.) It could have happened last fall; that it didn't was entirely a matter of luck." I would say this has been the grace of God.