In the wake of Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi’s dismissal of Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s lawsuit against the state Government Accountability Board Thursday, one thing is clear: Voters who registered between January 2006 and August 2008 will not be checked against a state database as mandated by federal law. Van Hollen has promised to appeal the decision, but with little more than a week to go before Election Day, time has run out.

It’s unfortunate that this is the case. The GAB certainly deserves no plaudits for its performance. The federal law in question — the Help America Vote Act of 2002 — required states to compile a voter database that can be checked against driver’s license or Social Security records by Jan. 1, 2006. The board did not launch its database until Aug. 6 of this year, 2 1/2 years after the deadline. The delay is partly the result of the state’s disastrous decision to contract with Accenture to construct the database, but other states working with the company got their databases up and running long before Wisconsin.

The GAB has checked new voter registrations against the database since Aug. 6. The board has not ordered clerks to check registrations dating back to Jan. 1, 2006, however, while also ruling that voters with mismatched information would be able to vote as normal. Such mismatches are often of a typographical nature — a person lists a nickname when the database contains a full name, for instance — but could also be a result of fraud.

In upholding the GAB’s policies, Judge Sumi seems to have deprived HAVA of any teeth. If the GAB refuses to use its database, the database is of no worth.

It is essential registrations be checked after the election. Voter registration fraud and voter fraud are contentious issues, but no one can deny they do exist. Two weeks ago, a worker for the Community Voters Project submitted more than 50 falsified registration forms in Milwaukee. Either the addresses listed on the registrations were not personal residences, or the names listed did not exist, or both. He was not the first worker from the organization charged during this election cycle in Wisconsin.

This is not to say fraud is widespread, but even a small amount of fraud is highly troubling. The GAB must be vigilant for fraud, and complying with HAVA is a necessary first step.