Voter ID laws seem to make so much sense. For most of us, presenting up-to-date identification is no problem, but for the poor, such laws can present extraordinary obstacles.
The other problem is that more requirements for voting means more opportunity to prevent people from voting. Registrars, for example, can make the times and locations for voter registration difficult. Or the government elected to serve the people, can use the law to supress opposition voters. Any laws coming from Wisconsin these days should raise eyebrows, and their Voter ID law, which is no exception to Walkerism, provides a case study in partisan voter supression. The Raw Story reports:
State employee Chris Larsen told radio host John “Sly” Sylvester that his bosses at the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) had become upset because he sent an email to other employees Thursday to remind them that photo IDs were supposed to be available without charge.
“Do you know someone who votes that does not have a State ID that meets requirements to vote?” Larsen asked in his email, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Tell them they can go to the DMV/DOT and get a free ID card. However they must ask for the free ID. a memo was sent out by the 3rd in command of the DMV/DOT. The memo specifically told the employees at the DMV/DOT not to inform individuals that the ID’s are free. So if the individuals seeking to get the free ID does not ask for a free ID, they will have to pay for it!!”
That’s how Voter ID laws can be used to suppress the vote: the more requirements to vote, the more opportunity for interference.
And the Wisconsin story doesn’t end (or in fact, begin) there. The whistleblower was fired “after he revealed that a Department of Transportation official had instructed workers to not notify citizens that IDs necessary for voting could be obtained for free.”
A fish rots from the head down, however.
A leaked memo written by a high-ranking Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation official stipulates that DMV workers are not to offer the voter ID, leaving it to the patron to explicitly ask for the free ID, then fill out the proper paperwork.
“While you should certainly help customers who come in asking for a free ID to check the appropriate box, you should refrain from offering the free version to customers who do not ask for it,” Steve Krieser, executive secretary for the Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation, wrote to employees.
Signage which was supposed to notify DMV patrons of the new voting rules is also missing in action, still being designed, according to The Capital Times.
After passage of the voter ID law, Gov. Scott Walker (R),.. called for the closure of as many as 16 DMV offices, mainly in Democratic-leaning areas. After intense public backlash, he reversed himself, expanding the DMV and adding operating hours in some offices to accommodate increased demand for ID cards — at a cost of $6 million over the previously allotted budget.
He has “expanded the DMV and adding operating hours in some offices to accommodate increased demand for ID cards — at a cost of $6 million over the previously allotted budget.”
Wow… go Gov Walker!
It sounds like the optics of voter suppression are, quite unsurprisingly, rather ugly. When you’re caught doing it, you backpedal at double speed.
The ID laws won’t change one whit the number of individual people who vote despite not being lawfully permitted to vote. It will, however, suppress others who would have otherwise been lawfully permitted to vote, and it will cost the state of Wisconsin $6M this year. Walker’s got revenue to try to clean pup his ugly voter suppression and he’s certainly got revenue for a major tax cut in WI, but he didn’t have the cash to pay for public servants. Go figure.
We need IDs for almost everything we do in life, drive a car, cash a check, go to school, get medical care (non-emergency), get married, get a job… so why not something so important as vote for our political leaders? Make it free, make is easy to do, go TO the communities and get it done of needed… but make it secure and validated (meaning don’t have it done by community activists).
I want voter ID to be a mandate but I don’t want anyone’s votes suppressed, whether I agree with their votes or not!
A secure national ID would cost a lot of money – that’s part of the huge battle over the REAL ID law, which was an unfunded mandate that the feds tried to foist onto the states, who rebelled because of the cost. Are you willing to see your taxes raised to pay for this?
he’d take the money out of earthquake relief funds.
Now, I admit to not knowing a stitch about how this kind of thing would work, but is there any possibility of the national or Wisconsin Democratic Party (or even a PAC) spending some advertising dollars to get a local television and print media campaign going to the effect of “In The United States of America, Voting Is Still Free: Ask for the FREE Voter ID card from your local DMV/DOT today and then exercise your right to make a difference…yadda yadda yadda.”
why should someone who opposed this stupid law in the first place have to spend their money to correct a misleading campaign by Walker & Co.?