Last month, the Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen of Wisconsin openly bragged at the GOP convention in St. Paul that voters would be "hearing much more" from his department about actions 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 showing up and casting one that is illegal."

He filed a suit days later in an attempt to coerce the Government Accountability Board to scramble and cross-check voter IDs just weeks before the Presidential election.

But today, a judge said no dice:

A Dane County circuit judge today dismissed a lawsuit by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to require the state elections agency to check voter registrations against other state databases dating to 2006, which critics said could have thrown hundreds of thousands of registrations into doubt.

Judge Maryann Sumi said Van Hollen failed to state an adequate claim for bringing the lawsuit and noted that state law has consistently favored protecting citizens' right to vote. Sumi also said that Van Hollen did not have standing to bring the lawsuit.

Van Hollen had sought to require the state Government Accountability Board to enforce the federal Help America Vote Act, which required Wisconsin election officials to verify registrants' names and ages against state driver, death and felon records beginning on Jan. 1, 2006.

But Sumi said only the U.S. attorney general can enforce that federal law.

Van Hollen could appeal.

Really the best of both worlds: Barack Obama would win Wisconsin even if the suit failed - but now another careerist Republican looks foolish having failed to politicize the voting process.

And yes, this is the same Van Hollen who wanted to be the first AG from Wisconsin to go to his party's convention with a security detail, then demoted a Justice Department bureau director who questioned whether it would be legal.

Update [2008-10-23 15:46:0 by Josh Orton]: MAL Contends has more in the diaries.