Of course he knew it was coming. Today, Wisconsin Attorney General, JB Van Hollen’s  lawsuit to force the the Government Accountability Board or (GAB) to perform a broad check of registered voters with the DMV database was denied by a Dane County Circuit judge.  HAVA or the Help America Vote Act, requires checks on newly registered voters beginning August 6th, instead of Janruary 1st, 2006, nearly two years ago.

This of course, leaves Wisconsin’s voter roles in question as we continue to get closer to November 4th.  Van Hollen vowed that he’s going to take it to the next level.

In the meantime, a few of Wisconsin’s metro-Milwaukee mayors and clerks have been taking an initiative to verify their own voter rolls.  Just this week, Mayor Jill Didier of Wauwatosa was denied by GAB official, K.Kennedy to perform checks of the city’s voter rolls.  Looks like the government board that’s accountable for elections doesn’t want to let cities take the initiative to verify its own voters.  Welcome to Wisconsin.

Governor Jim Doyle’s DNC Convention speech (see transcript here), drafted by a salaried speech from the office of the Governor only metioned the word “Wisconsin” 5 times.  The speech also mentioned John McCain 3 times and references Bush/Cheney’s administration.

Even GAB Attorney Jon Becker, had a small statement regarding the speech:

“So if I was having my staff write a speech to read at a political convention, that would be bothersome to me”  -GAB Attorney Jonathan Becker

He cautioned that such a speech might not violate the ethics code if it focused on state issues and policy matters rather than partisan attacks.  Since he didn’t mention anything about Wisconsin’s rising unemployment, he really didn’t talk about state issues.  All he mentioned was a small gear company in Antigo, WI called Merit Gear.  Doyle just recently issued that company a $750,000 grant for expansion.