Wisconsin's ALEC State Chair Seeks to Amend Constitution to Require ID at Polls

ber 6, 2012 - 8:41am

Despite two separate Wisconsin courts striking down the state's voter ID law as an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, the state legislature's incoming Assembly Leader, Rep. Robin Vos, has pledged support for amending the state constitution to require ID at the polls -- despite hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin residents not having ID and no significant evidence of voter fraud in the state. Vos is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) State Chair for Wisconsin; Wisconsin's voter ID law, like many of those introduced in recent years, echoes the ALEC "model" voter ID Act.

"The people's fundamental right of suffrage preceded and gave birth to our Constitution," Dane County District Judge Richard Niess wrote in his March decision striking down Wisconsin's voter ID law as unconstitutional. "Not the other way around."

Rep. Vos spearheaded the effort to pass the ALEC-inspired voter ID act in 2011. Courts blocked the law a few months later.

In a separate decision finding, the law violates the Wisconsin Constitution's express protections for voting rights. Dane County Judge David Flanagan said the state's strict voter ID requirement "tells more than 300,000 Wisconsin voters who do not now have an acceptable form of photo identification that they cannot vote unless they first obtain a photo ID card."

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/12/11896/courts-standing-way-voter-suppression-wisconsins-alec-state-chair-seeks-amend-con