Great news for Wisconsin and democracy in general. Take that, John Roberts!
Government of the people wins again.
Great news for November, but why not August? What possibly do the state elections officials need to do to prepare for people possibly not owning a DMV-issued ID? What’s different? Please, Judge, don’t “split the baby!”
With a workaround this stupid, it’s obviously time to just shitcan the whole retarded law.
You need ID to get your birth certificate. You need a birth certificate to apply for an ID.
Anyone who can sign an affidavit detailing how this circular bullshit impacted their life, could damned well just sign an affidavit that they’re a citizen who’s eligible to vote, and be done with it.
3,2,1 who can’t easily get a ID…
Well it was easy, just took almost 5 months…
- DMV open only every other Tuesday for 2 hours and if not in line at least 3 hours early you are shit out of luck. State law states the I must obtain within county of residence.
- DMV office in a remote corner of county without any public transportation.
- State uses a system where any flags must be cleared by one statewide office and each flag must be cleared one at a time on different visits. Flags can be such as someone else has an identical name with a license within the state already or within a state they share info with. Until cleared that computer is locked and can’t be used for any other purpose.
- Must have multiple items with your current address, they also must not be for any new account. So, for example, if a new utility statement good luck if you just moved into state.
What employer will allow a new hire all that unpaid time off. It appears this is just a method to keep voter registrations down.
Some of the problems I had.
- As listed above, took 3 trips before I managed to even get in door. Then I was next number called only to be told office was closing in 15 minutes, come back.
- As listed above 3 times computer flagged someone with same name. Had to come back.
- I was born in PA in 1945, was told my original birth certificate was old therefore would not accept. Took 3 weeks to obtain a new certificate. Then when presented was told the new certificate was different than original (guess they never heard about documents getting revised, even said revised on the cert). Another 3 weeks to get a certified letter from PA that yes they had revised the form to meet new federal and state requirements after 9/11.
Once I had the driver’s license in hand, with a nice clean picture, took only about 5 minutes at the courthouse to register. Made the deadline by just a couple of days, all told took from May 2010 to October 2010.
The fewer people vote, the more Republicans win. No wonder they suppress the vote, contrary to American values.
Better still, the federal judiciary should just declare the Wisconsin legislature and its executive branch criminal organizations and order them disbanded.
Elect Russ Feingold – Make Wisconsin Sane Again
I suppose this is good news, but it’s too little too late. The WI ID law is basically in place, and swearing an affidavit will be a bridge too far for many voters. First order of business, under a President Clinton, is to fill the Supreme Court, then challenge every voter ID law out there: and then watch the Supreme Court protect voting rights with some sort of declaration to the effect that in the absence of clear evidence of significant voter fraud, voter ID laws prima facie serve some other purpose, and the burden lies on the state to establish the validity of the other purpose and, in the event that such validity is established, that the Voter ID law in question is a proportionate response. Or something else that stops this unconstitutional bullshit once and for all.
If Wisconsin Democrats know what the rules are, and have months to bring their people into compliance it is up to Democrats to sign their people up. That said, the voter suppression crap Republicans have at the center of their election strategy is pure evil.
Good luck to anyone in Waukesha county who asks for an affidavit. “Oh, they aren’t here yet, sorry.”
We need to put it in the constitution that every American citizen has the right to vote. Then we can avoid all these voter suppression schemes.
Wonder if Kobach was in on this part of the vast right wing voter-suppression conspiracy?
His coaching helped more than a few anti-democracy goons bully the voters in other states, he crossed state lines numerous times to sell voter suppression in the name of voter fraud prevention to states outside Kansas.
Kobach became something of a journeyman vote suppressor, the legal wordman who could twist voter suppression tactics into something that sounded vigilant and protective, when it was exactly the opposite of voter rights.
I have said is for a long time now, there’s no fine line between voter suppression and vote protection, it is cut and dried and clear as a bell, and the conspiracy they have committed is going to turn on them if they don;t retain control.
The People will demand some sort of answer, and rightful legal retribution for what they did to The People with gerrymandering and vote suppression on an industrial scale like Kobach generated and enabled other states to do…
Every meeting he had with another SOS or any republican operative tasked with accomplishing his voter suppression schemes can quite accurately be described as a crime, much more than an official act. They pose it all as Kobach doing his job, but they are the only ones remaining who believe their own lie.
Some of these zealots in Republican garb who thought there was some sort of 1000 year Republican reign in the works, and assumed therefor that they would be immune from legal scrutiny and retribution for their voter suppression crimes are looking at the trump phenomenon quite fearfully, because it promises to remove any vestige of insider legal protection they might have imagined when they maliciously obstructed American citizens from voting, ust to retain their hold on what little power they imagined they had.
If the voter-rights legal eagles I’ve spoken with, who were so angry all along, get a chance to prove in court that Kobach was a vote-law violator, not a vote-protector, they have more evidence than they need, and most of it is public.
Hubris made these guilty administrators assume they were immune, now it is quite possible, maybe inevitable, that they will learn the hard way that there is no such thing in the fickle winds of political fate.
If you are in power and you abuse that power, the day will come when you aren’t in power anymore and you may be held accountable by your former victims who knew you weren’t protecting voters at all because THEY were your victims and, by nature, victims tend to recognize their abusers before the general public does.
If some Democrat had denied Republicans their right to vote, there would have been an outrageous response in the press, but because of Citizens United, the media refused to tell the truth about Kobach and his voter-suppression campaign.
WE are the 4th Estate.
The oldstream media finally and wholly abdicated that duty the day Citizens United was sanctified by the Supreme Court.
The Constitution says we have a right to vote. It does not specify that we must show identification in order to do so.
Shouldn’t Republicans be defending voting rights with the same vigor they use to defend gun rights?
Oh my. I had no idea it was this difficult. Is that true that the WI DMV is only open every other Tuesday? What the heck?
I wish your example was plastered everywhere - so those idiots who try to argue that “it’s no big deal” to get a certain kind of photo ID would have to rethink their ignorant stance.
I know you are snarkin’, but in some of these purple states run by the red barrons, there are legislative sessions ALREADY ON THE PUBLIC RECORD BOOKS that quite literally represented active conspiracies to suppress the vote, by every legal definition.
Some of those all-R committee meetings where they carved up states like Texas were illegal conspiracies, too.
And that is not partisan bluster, it is simple legal fact.
When the intent is obviously to limit one or another class or group of voters in some way, to obstruct their vote or make their access to that process difficult, selectively, like they did in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in 2004, that represents a conspiracy to break the voting rights laws.
Just because they are having their debate under the auspices of state government doesn’t change the fact that, ANY meeting that is destined to create legislation to restrict voting rights is illegal from the moment it is agreed upon by the co-conspirators.
So, while you are at least a bit snarky here, I suggest you also mean it quite seriously, because it really is that serious.
The Wisconsin state legislature has, at numerous time and in diverse manners, committed the crime of conspiracy, to create voter suppression. and then tried to couch it as the opposite.
Only their hold on power protects them from the reality of this, as long as they are in charge they are the final arbiters of any enforcement.
Could that be why they seem so desperate?
Maybe some of them have realized, a progressive tidal wave would take all that protection away, in one election cycle.
And then there will be hell to pay.
Yes, though this doesn’t prevent states from taking measures to ensure that voters are citizens.
Most if not all voter suppression is already couched in the idea that every (non-felon) citizen has the right, and that they are here to protect it. If it isn’t portrayed as a sacred right it won’t gratify Pub voters to deny it to ethnic/poor people. If the right were explicitly guaranteed by the USC, it might make it easier or more impactful for disenfranchised voters to bring lawsuits against their states, but that costs time & money–the very levers with which Republicans rig the rolls.
We already have pretty comprehensive laws to define and correct voter suppression; we no longer have laws that prevent it. Or, apparently, to punish it. We’ve had numerous state legislatures knowingly break the VRA because it’s now bureaucratically possible to do. We’ve had these laws turned over after the damage is done. But to my knowledge nobody’s been jailed, impeached or even fined. What the hell, you know?
TN, at least that is what the DMV office staff I dealt with in 2010 stated…
I assume in larger cities with multiple offices as well as a larger clientele it would be different. Not 100% sure if that statement would be true but I would hope so. This county however is TP country, confederate flag, tri-corner hats and all.