The state Republican Party chairman said Monday he had multiple conversations with Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's top aide before Van Hollen filed a lawsuit against the state election agency to compel expanded voter registration checks.

But Reince Priebus, the party chairman, defended his contacts with Deputy Attorney General Ray Taffora, his comments in Van Hollen's presence this month at the Republican National Convention criticizing the election agency, and meetings between GOP lawyers and the Justice Department lawyers handling the lawsuit.

And he said party officials didn't collaborate with Van Hollen, a Republican, in preparing the lawsuit against the state Government Accountability Board, which oversees elections.

"We have a right to talk to the attorney general's office and we did it," Priebus said Monday. "There's nothing wrong with us reporting a problem that is a blatant and intentional disregard of federal law."

But state Democratic Party Chairman Joe Wineke said the contacts show Van Hollen is "misusing his role as attorney general."

"What he is doing is pushing the agenda of the Republican Party of Wisconsin," Wineke said.

Van Hollen and Taffora didn't respond to requests for comment.

But a Justice Department spokesman said Taffora spoke with Priebus about the voter checks at the party chairman's request and that Taffora also spoke with accountability board officials about the matter.

Van Hollen told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week that he was not aware of contacts between his office and state GOP officials.

Also Monday, the state GOP filed a motion Monday seeking to intervene in the case to protect legitimate votes.

The main issue

At issue is the breadth of voter registration checks state and local officials should make under the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act. The law requires states to create a centralized voter registration system as a way to prevent fraud at the polls.

In August, the accountability board decided it would conduct the checks — in which voter registration information is matched against Department of Transportation records — on registrations made after Aug. 6 because that's when its voter system became operational.

But Van Hollen argues in the lawsuit that the checks should be made on all registrations since January 2006, when the state's voter system was supposed to be in effect. And he says ineligible voters should be purged from the rolls.

Van Hollen is state co-chairman for Sen. John McCain's campaign. Republicans applaud the suit. Democrats contend it is politically motivated.

Board rejected plea

Priebus said GOP lawyers met this summer with staff for the accountability board, made up of six retired judges, to argue in favor of checks on all voter registrations since January 2006. After the board rejected the GOP's suggestion, he directed the party's lawyers to talk to Justice Department lawyers to explain the party's position, he said.

He said he expressed his frustration about the accountability board's decision several times at the GOP convention in St. Paul Sept. 1-4, including once at a convention delegate breakfast attended by Van Hollen and another in a small group setting in which Van Hollen was present.

"It's important that in my comments to the delegation and even standing around in the breakfast room or the staff room with J.B., there was nothing more I said than the continuation of my general feeling that the Government Accountability Board needs to follow the HAVA law," Priebus said. "There was no strategizing."

Priebus also said he talked to Taffora at least three times about the voter checks before Van Hollen filed the lawsuit. But he said he was not involved in any decisions Van Hollen's office made about it.