Election Fraud and Phony Phone Calls.--

1. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports (quick registration required):

Between 15,000 and 20,000 Milwaukee residents who registered to vote in recent months have not had their forms processed and may find themselves unregistered at the polls Tuesday, Mayor Tom Barrett said today....

Poll workers will already be reviewing about 5,500 addresses where buildings may not exist as a result of an agreement reached Sunday in response to a Republican complaint.

What a mess!

If there are anything near 5,500 phony registrations for buildings that don't exist, imagine how many more phony registrations there are for buildings that do exist. My guess is that Bush will need to win by at least 20,000 in Wisconsin to overcome this sort of fraud. I don't think he can do it.

2. On the other side, AP has the text of a phone call that says that Kerry would make gay marriage legal:

When you vote this Tuesday remember to legalize gay marriage by supporting John Kerry. We need John Kerry in order to make gay marriage legal for our city. Gay marriage is a right we all want. It's a basic Democrat principle. It's time to move forward and be progressive. Without John Kerry, George Bush will stop gay marriage. That's why we need Kerry. So Tuesday, stand up for gay marriage by supporting John Kerry.

This sort of thing is reprehensible. While Kerry might want to make gay marriage legal if he thought he could (I would favor such a move myself), Kerry is crystal clear that he opposes it.

I hope that everyone who finds this phone ad deeply wrong also condemned the draft email hoax as well. While in his heart of hearts Kerry might really want to recognize gay marriage (but politically can't), Bush would never want to reintroduce the draft, and Kerry and any other Democrat with a brain knows it. A draft would lead to a great loss in quality in the military and a great rise in opposition to the War on Terror. People remember that opposition to the Viet Nam War greatly lessened when the draft ended, and the quality of the military soared.

We really need the MSM to keep the campaigns (or lower partisan operatives) honest when they put out false and sleazy attacks like the gay marriage phone call and the draft email hoax. Instead, the press did its best to spread the draft email hoax, rather than pound those responsible.

We should remember the terrible phone call campaigns in 2000--the South Carolina one that attacked McCain in the primary (in favor of Bush) and the last-minute pro-Gore ones in November 2000 claiming that Bush would abolish the NLRB (I actually got one of those calls), cut social security, and his election would increase lynchings of African-Americans. We need the MSM to follow up on these and expose who is behind them.

Unfortunately, these last minute phone messages sometimes work. We probably would have had Jeb Bush running in 2000 rather than GW if Jeb had won his first campaign for governor. He was leading until a last-minute phone blitz claimed that he would eliminate social security (even though it is a federal, not a Florida program). In 2000, GW Bush's last minute collapse was caused by the DUI October surprise, but I believe that Florida would not have been so close without the last-minute automated pro-Gore phone calls there claiming Bush would cut social security.

3. Drudge, the AP and others are reporting that a phony pro-Kerry phone call is running that claims that General Norman Schwarzkopf is endorsing Kerry. Schwarzkopf released this statement:

"The Democratic National Committee is making fraudulent phone calls claiming that I have endorsed Senator Kerry. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I demand that they stop immediately.

"Senator Kerry opposed the Reagan defense build-up that won the Cold War. Senator Kerry opposed the removal of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Senator Kerry proposed billions in intelligence cuts after the first attack on the World Trade Center. Senator Kerry voted against funds to equip our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with supplies like body armor and ammunition.

"I am supporting President Bush for reelection, because he is the candidate who has demonstrated the conviction needed to defeat terrorism. In contrast to the President's steadfast determination to defeat our enemies, Senator Kerry has a record of weakness that gives me no confidence in his ability to fight and win the War on Terror. His attempt to make up for these deficiencies by falsifying my endorsement only confirms my impression that he is not the man we need to lead our nation."

Somehow I doubt that the DNC is behind this one, no matter what the hoax phone call says.

According to the AP, which heard a tape, the person speaking on the phone actually claims to be Schwarzkopf. This is an identity theft or other felony in some states, which can (but usually doesn't) lead to serious jail time. I'd love to see a prosecution.

4. The AP gives some other examples of this disgusting practice of phony phone calls:

In Lancaster County, Pa., Republican officials said bogus phone calls have gone to at least a dozen elderly voters, alleging they are ineligible to vote. The calls appeared to target Republicans, said Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., who called them "an outrageous effort on the part of someone to try to repress the vote."

Registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats in Lancaster County more than a 3-to-1 margin.

GOP officials, meanwhile, have been getting reports of phone calls being made by a person who says he's representing the Bush campaign, and then unlooses a string of swear words. Another phone call is said to tell voters they've been drafted for military service because Bush needs them for the war in Iraq.

I don't say this very often, but Hooray for the AP.

UPDATE: A few readers have emailed to say that the Schwarzkopf phone call was a shortened version of a call from General McPeak that came out "I'm ... Norman SChwarzkopf." One reader attributed this to an answering machine skipping, another reader to a Republican splice job. I think it's a splice job, but whether it was done by Republicans or Democrats I would have no way of knowing. Again, mainstream press checking to see who got such calls is the best way to sort things out.

2D UPDATE: On Kerry's impassioned, but somewhat ambiguous 1996 statement favoring gay marriage, see Nick Mikulicich.

More Possible Fraud--This time by the Daschle campaign.--

Powerline is reporting that the Tom Daschle campaign is flat-out lying to voters saying that "John Thune is attacking" Daschle's wife:

The Daschle campaign, desperate at finding itself behind in the polls, has resorted to an especially low form of "push polling." Our correspondent reports:

am here in Brookings, South Dakota [and] just thought I'd pass on the following information if you haven't seen or heard it. The Daschle campaign is having people claiming to be pastors and ministers calling local South Dakotans asking them whether the fact the "John Thune is attacking Linda Daschle" bothers them or makes them uncomfortable. When one constituent peppered the "pastor" with questions about his hometown, where he lived - it was apparent this "pastor" was not from South Dakota at all.

I called the Daschle campaign in Brookings posing as a sympathetic constituent, and they CONFIRMED to me that these calls are being made.

Needless to say, Thune isn't attacking Linda Daschle. But for Tom Daschle, this is what his long career in the Senate has come down to--hoping to eke out a victory through whining, false claims, and fraud.

I'm not making a lot of predictions this year, but I'm going out on a limb on this one--Thune will win.

If true, this is devastating. The campaign admitted to Powerline's respondent that it was doing this dirty trick. Again, if true, a free press is needed to expose this fraud to the voters.

UPDATE: A reader (Daniel Wolf) sent this email, which (if true) directly supports the Daschle campaigns statements about the Thune campaign (though not the claim that the Daschle caller was a fellow South Dakotan):

My great aunt in Yankton, S.D. has received two phone calls claiming that Linda Daschle was an abortionist. The Daschle campaign is completely correct on this.