State panel backs election plan; photo ID requirement not included

By Patrick Marley
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Posted: Aug. 10, 2009

Madison — The state Government Accountability Board on Monday endorsed a five-year plan to study early and Internet voting, but not a requirement that voters show photo identification at the polls.

The board that runs the state's elections said studying voter ID was outside the scope of the plan on conducting elections under the federal Help America Vote Act.

They said that a photo ID requirement was a matter for the Legislature to resolve.

Critics of the report said that voter ID is needed to prevent fraud at the polls.

Annette Kuglitsch of Waukesha urged the board to include studying a photo ID requirement in its plan. She said the board had the authority to take up that issue.

"It's not a valid excuse," she said of the board's reasoning for sidestepping the issue.

She said she didn't buy some board members' arguments that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

"You don't find what you're not looking for," said Kuglitsch, who was joined by others from Waukesha County who have lobbied the board to take up the issue.

The Legislature passed bills three times between 2003 and 2005 that would have required voters to show photo ID, but Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed them.

The Legislature was controlled by Republicans at the time; Democrats now run both houses.

Doyle and others have contended an ID requirement would disenfranchise voters, particularly the poor, the elderly and minorities.

The board's plan now goes to the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee for final action. The plan is needed to secure up to $6 million in federal funds.

"We do not have the degree of fraud to warrant taking that step" of requiring voters to show ID, said board member Gordon Myse. "The detriments overwhelm the benefits."

But board member Thomas Cane said the board had to acknowledge public support for voter ID.

"You've got a Legislature that represents the people of Wisconsin, and they say we want it," Cane said.

But Cane and the others on the board agreed the election plan was not the place to address the issue. They approved the plan 6-0.

The plan proposes studying whether to allow people to cast ballots with voting machines before election day. Now, the only way to vote early in Wisconsin is by casting absentee ballots, which clerks feed into voting machines on election day.

The plan also endorses studying whether to allow absentee ballots to be submitted by e-mail or fax.

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