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A Milwaukee resident was charged Monday with election fraud, the first charge in an investigation into voter registration workers who submitted fake names to the city in what a complaint says amounted to a quota system.(snip)The complaint claims Adams "was required to obtain 15 (completed) voter registration forms a day. She could not keep her job with the CVP [Community Voters Project]and she would not be paid unless she met this ‘performance standard,' which for all practical purposes is a quota."According to the complaint, Adams faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 if convicted of the felony charge. A warrant was to be issued Monday for her arrest, officials said.Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf indicated that charges against other registration workers might be filed in the future.
ACORN and the Community Voters Project are among five activist groups, all from the liberal side of the political spectrum, that have launched massive voter registration drives in advance of the Nov. 4 presidential election.Those developments have revived partisan debate over whether Wisconsin should require voters to show photo identification to prevent fraud or whether such measures would dampen turnout among poor and minority voters. During the 2004 election, problems arose with voters using invalid addresses and felons voting illegally, but an investigation by U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic found no evidence of widespread fraud.In the current case, the Election Commission referred four workers - at least two from ACORN and at least one from the Community Voters Project - to the Milwaukee County district attorney's office for possible criminal prosecution, Edman said. She was not sure which group employed the fourth individual.