Wisc. AG’s Office Denies Voter Reg. Suit is PoliticalThe Wisconsin attorney general’s office is standing firmly by its claim that Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s suit against the Government Accountability Board is not political — despite an audio recording discovered yesterday of Van Hollen promising action on voter fraud to a Republican audience, weeks before he filed suit.
“It’s a very good and compelling speech that reiterates what he’s been talking about for two years,” Kevin St. John, a spokesman from the AG’s office told WisPolitics.com, the site that originally discovered the audio of Van Hollen’s speech at the Republican National Convention on Sept. 4.
“You’ll be hearing much more from the Department of Justice in the coming months about doing what we can to make sure that those people who have illegally and illegitimately registered to vote, don’t have the opportunity on election day to show up and take away your vote by casting one that is not legal,” Van Hollen says in the audio recording from the RNC.
St. John pointed to a letter (pdf) Van Hollen sent to the GAB — which oversees state elections — on August 27, which states that he will be pushing for the board to meet HAVA compliances in demanding that they verify all of the voter registrations filed since January 2006.
“The Attorney General has given many public statements about the right to vote and to enforce the law,” St. John said to WisPolitics.com. “Illegal voting is wrong and the Attorney General’s office should work within the powers of the office to enforce the law and protect the right to vote.”
