Wisconsin will implement a new voter registration system this summer, which will give officials an opportunity to identify voter fraud but potentially create logistical challenges for the State Elections Board.
According to Dan Thompson, executive director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, the new system is the result of a federal law implemented after the voting crisis in Florida during the 2000 presidential elections.
The system will include names of all voters, with their addresses, Social Security numbers and birth dates, and will electronically track the election in which voters participate and where they vote.
\What will be different about Wisconsin is we have a radically decentralized system now,"" Thompson said.
He added the state currently only has registration systems for municipalities with populations over 5,000. This leaves more than 1,850 towns with their own recording processes.
With this new registration system, there will be one place in the state where officials can get a complete listing of all new voters in the state.
Thompson said the system will not make it difficult for new voters to register the day of an election; they will simply need to give their drivers license and Social Security numbers.
According to Dane County Clerk Joseph Parisi, much of the funding for implementing this system will come from the federal government. He said Madison will see little effect from this system, because the city already electronically records registered voters.
""The biggest change will be for those smaller municipalities who don't currently have regulations,"" he said.
According to Thompson, there are more than 50 software products available for electronically registering voters, and only 320 municipalities that have such programs. The rest of the state uses non-electronic poll lists, in which voters come in and sign their name on a piece of paper.
""Getting all of that together and getting it all under the same platform is going to be challenging,"" he said.
Although Parisi said he is not aware of any voting fraud in Dane Count, a recent study by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found 361 felons on supervision cast illegal ballots during the 2000 elections.
Racine County Clerk Joan Rennert told the Journal Sentinel this new system is the perfect way to discover and get rid of voter fraud.
Steve Pickett, a member of the Wisconsin State Elections Board, said the state will start implementing the system in August. It will be completed by 2005.
