Thread: WI: Walker signs Voter ID bill into law

Walker signs Voter ID bill into law

WTMJ-TV
May 25, 2011
MADISON, WI

Gov. Scott Walker has signed into law a requirement that Wisconsin voters show photo identification at the polls.

Walker signed the bill today in the Capitol.

About 50 protesters yelled "Recall Walker!" outside the room where Walker signed it.

It marks the end of an eight-year push by Republicans to enact the photo ID requirement.

They passed it three times when Democrat Jim Doyle was governor, but he vetoed it each time.

Republicans say the requirement is needed to combat voter fraud, while Democrats say it's more about disenfranchising voters.

The requirement to show a photo ID when voting would take effect next year, but other changes affecting absentee voting and the ability to vote take effect immediately and will be in force for recall elections this summer.

http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/122601659.html

Madison - Ending a decade-long quest by GOP officials, Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill Wednesday requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls.

But the law costing more than $7 million in new spending and lost revenue could still face a legal challenge as opponents mull over the possibility of suing to block it from taking effect.

The law will require poll workers to start asking voters for photo IDs for the July 12 state Senate recall elections, but the voters will not be required to present them until next year's presidential primary.

"To me, something as important as a vote is important whether it's one case, one hundred cases or one hundred thousand cases. Making sure we have legislation that protects the integrity for an open, fair and honest election in every single case is important," said Walker, who signed the bill as a few dozen protesters shouted "Recall Walker!" outside his conference room.

Wisconsin is now the 11th state to have approved requiring some form of photo ID at the polls. Democrats have decried the measure, saying it would do little to prevent voter fraud while disenfranchising thousands of minority, elderly and rural voters.

"We continue to confer with legal counsel about what potential legal challenges can be made against Gov. Walker's voter suppression bill," Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, said in a statement Wednesday.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana's photo ID law in 2008, but opponents say Wisconsin's law could be vulnerable to a legal challenge because of differences between the states such as less access to state offices providing driver's licenses. Unlike voters in Indiana, people in Wisconsin casting absentee ballots would have to include a photocopy of their ID when they mail their ballots. Getting copies made will be an additional burden on elderly voters and others with limited mobility, critics said.

Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, said her group also is considering suing over the measure. She said opponents of the law are discussing whether a lawsuit would be more effective now or after the law has taken effect, and they can identify voters who were unable to vote because of the new requirement.

Walker said he's confident the photo ID requirement is constitutional.

Ross said one difference between Wisconsin and Indiana is the greater flexibility offered by Division of Motor Vehicles offices in Indiana, such as widely available weekend hours and full-time offices in every county. Wisconsin offices have largely no weekend hours and fewer full-time offices, making it more difficult for some to get to the existing offices to obtain a photo ID.

Republicans, including Walker during his time as a state lawmaker, have sought the requirement for nearly a decade but were stymied largely by former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, who vetoed the measure three times between 2003 and 2005. Since then, Democrats in the Legislature have prevented the change from advancing to the governor's desk.

Now, Republicans control both houses of the Legislature and the governor's office.

The legislation should prevent people from voting in another's name, but not the most commonly prosecuted form of voter fraud in the state - felons voting while on state supervision.

The state Department of Justice and Milwaukee County district attorney's office have prosecuted 20 cases of voter fraud from the November 2008 election. None involves people voting in someone else's name at the polls.

Similarly, after the 2004 election, then-U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

A Milwaukee Police Department report during the same election cycle recommended that photo ID be required to vote. The unsigned report was released in 2008 without the approval of police commanders, and Police Chief Edward Flynn did not endorse its policy recommendations.

Under the new law, people would be allowed to vote only after showing Wisconsin driver's licenses, state-issued ID cards, certain very limited student IDs, military IDs, passports, naturalization certificates or IDs issued by a tribe based in Wisconsin.

Those living in retirement homes, nursing homes and institutions would be exempt from the law, as would victims of stalking and those who opposed having their photos taken for religious reasons. A voter who did not show a photo ID would be allowed to cast a provisional ballot that would be counted if the voter showed photo ID to an election clerk by the Friday after the election.

Implementing the law will cost more than $7 million over the next two years, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee voted Tuesday to provide $1.8 million to the Government Accountability Board to implement the photo ID requirement - less than the $2.1 million the agency has said it will need to make computer upgrades, train poll workers and educate the public about the new law.

The committee put the money in the state budget, which the Legislature will take up next month. That means the accountability board will receive the funds just weeks before the July 12 recall elections.

In the last part of the overall cost, the state is expected to lose about $4 million over two years in revenue because it will have to provide some people with free IDs.

Voters also would be required to sign poll books when they vote, which supporters say would make it easier to prove cases of voter fraud. The law also ends straight-party voting for everyone but military and overseas voters.

In another change, people could vote from their polling place only if they had lived in that voting ward for at least 28 days before an election. Now, voters have to live in their wards for 10 days before an election.

People would be able to vote by absentee ballot in clerks' offices for the two weeks before an election, down from the current 30 days before an election.

Reid Magney, a spokesman for the Government Accountability Board, which administers state elections, said that voters will have to sign poll books and will be asked to show photo ID in the July 12 Senate recall elections. Voters who do not have an ID will be given a piece of paper explaining the new requirement.

Voters will be required to have the IDs to vote in the 2012 Wisconsin presidential primaries.

Eight other states ask voters for photo ID, and Kansas and South Carolina have approved photo ID laws that are yet to go into effect. Eighteen other states require voters to show an ID, but not necessarily one with a photo. That number will rise to 19 in July when Oklahoma's law takes effect.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolit ... 88869.html

Why do I suspect that ACORN will have a photo ID business set up in Wisconsin?