RL 2005-10 Special Committee on Navigable Waters Recodification
(2005 Assembly Bill 500 )
RL 2005-12 Special Committee on Recodification of Ch.
938, the Juvenile Justice Code
(2005 Assembly Bill 443)
I would appreciate your including this letter in the Journal for the information of the membership. Additional copies of this report are available in the Legislative Council Staff offices, One East Main, Suite 401, or from our web page at
www.legis.state.wi.us/lc
Sincerely,
Terry C. Anderson
Director
__________________
September 19, 2005
Chief Clerk Patrick Fuller
17 W. Main St, Suite 208
Madison, WI 53708
Dear Chief Clerk Fuller:
I would like to be added as a co-sponsor of Assembly Bill 657. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mark Gundrum
State Assembly
84th Assembly District
__________________
Referral of Agency Reports
State of Wisconsin
Public Service Commission
Madison
September 13, 2005
To the Honorable, the Legislature:
Enclosed is a copy of the annual report the Public Service Commission (Commission) shall submit to the Legislature as provided for in Wis. Stat. §
1.11(2)(j). It reports on the number and type of proposed actions requiring the preparation of an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement by the Commission between July 1, 2004 and June 30, 2005.
If you have any questions on this report, please contact our Environmental Analysis and Review Coordinator, Kathleen Zuelsdorff, at (608) 266-2730.
Sincerely,
Daniel R. Ebert
Chairperson
Referred to committee on Natural Resources.
__________________
State of Wisconsin
Legislative Audit Bureau
Madison
September 16, 2005
To the Honorable, the Assembly:
We have completed an evaluation of voter registration in Wisconsin, as requested by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. Currently, voter registration is required by statute in only 172 large municipalities. Another 167 smaller municipalities choose to maintain voter registration lists. However, the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, which requires all states to develop a computerized voter registration system, will require voter registration statewide beginning in January 2006.
We found great variation in the implementation of existing voter registration laws. For example, 46.0 percent of municipalities that responded to our survey did not send address verification cards to individuals who registered by mail or at the polls on Election Day in November 2004, although doing so is an important step in verifying the residency of voters and detecting improper registrations. Only 85.3 percent of survey respondents reported updating their voter registration lists to remove inactive voters, as required by law.
Current voter registration practices are not sufficient to ensure the accuracy of voter registration lists used by poll workers or to prevent ineligible persons from registering to vote. We identified 105 instances of voting irregularities in six municipalities, including 98 ineligible felons who may have voted. The names of these individuals have been forwarded to appropriate district attorneys for investigation.
Implementation of the statewide voter registration system may address some concerns, but we make numerous recommendations to the Elections Board to improve the voter registration process. We also present policy options for the Legislature's consideration, including establishing uniform voter registration requirements, limiting the use of outside parties to register voters, and requiring enhanced training for municipal clerks.
We appreciate the courtesy and cooperation provided to us by the municipal clerks we interviewed and surveyed, as well as by Elections Board staff. A response from the Executive Director of the Elections board follows the appendices.
Respectfully submitted,
janice mueller
State Auditor
