Thread by @Greg_Palast

Today, the #Wisconsin Supreme Court may choose our president. That is, justices will hear arguments in a lawsuit that would force the state to remove 129,000 people from the voter rolls madison.com/opinion/column…

The #Wisconsin hit list is not only disastrously wrong, it is suspiciously over-weighted with African-Americans. Look at the maps. They reveal a near-perfect match between the percentage of Black voters in a Census tract and the number of voters wrongly tagged as having moved.

Rick Esenberg brought this lawsuit on behalf of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL). When I spoke to him, Esenberg admitted he had not checked his voter purge list for accuracy and claims he has no idea that the list is overloaded with Black and low-income voters.

WILL is backed by the right-wing Wisconsin billionaire Bradley family foundation. That does not surprise Elections Commissioner Ann Jacobs who is blunt about their aim. “I think it’s crystal clear the intent of this suit."

Whatever the intent, how could Esenberg’s group get it so wrong? It begins with a misuse of what is called the “ERIC” list... gregpalast.com/wisconsin-move…

ERIC uses a limited and amateurish system for identifying those who have moved from their registration address. But that’s not a problem, as ERIC was not established to hunt voters for the purge but to find those who moved into a state or town and invite them to register.

ERIC often confuses common names like James Brown. But if the wrong James Brown gets a postcard inviting him to register, no harm done. But the WI Legislature and then-Gov. Scott Walker added a stinger: If a voter does not return a postcard, they must be removed from the rolls.

The card looks like junk mail—so less than 2% returned it. Mark Swedlund, an expert in mailings, notes from Census studies that minority, young and urban residents don’t always receive mass mailings and respond at only a fraction of the rate of white, older, suburban homeowners.

Adding to bias against low-income & young voters, the “junk mail” cards were sent to voters who moved within the cities of Milwaukee and Madison even though both federal and state law prohibits cancelling registrations of those who move within their city. gregpalast.com/wisconsin-move…

“There is a small right-wing group which wants to undermine Black voters and young voters. They are desperate because they are losing power — so they are resorting to cheating and undermining the election by any means.” — @MsLaToshaBrown & @cliff_notes of @BlackVotersMtr

Palast Investigative Fund attorney Jeanne Mirer has submitted a copy of our findings to the Wisconsin Attorney General and the Wisconsin Board of Elections.
gregpalast.com/report-wiscons…