Wisconsinites, please get the word out -- Photo IDs are NOT required for the recall elections

highplainsdem

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Wed May-11-11 10:08 AM
Original message

Wisconsinites, please get the word out -- Photo IDs are NOT required for the recall elections

People voting in the recall elections will be asked for the proper photo ID, but will be allowed to vote anyway if they don't have it. They'll be told they'll need the ID for next year's elections.

There's been a lot of confusion on this, in part because some Wisconsin papers got the story wrong at first, and in part because the changes made in the bill ARE confusing (and were probably intended by the GOP to be confusing).

As this update at FDL explains:

http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/05/11/update-wisconsin-photo-id-requirement-would-take-effect-after-recalls-other-parts-of-bill-would-take-effect-before/

Update: Wisconsin Photo ID Requirement Would Take Effect After Recalls, Other Parts of Bill Would Take Effect Before
By: David Dayen Wednesday May 11, 2011 6:10 am

-snip-

That�s how it read Monday night. Sometime between Monday night and Tuesday, the story changed.

Now this is actually fairly common, to see rewrites in a story from the first time it appears on the Web to press time. But this amounts to a negation of the entire story. If voters will simply get asked for photo ID for the recalls but allowed to vote anyway, then the urgency of passage is merely a function of Wisconsin Republicans getting the most possible right-wing bills into circulation before losing the state Senate. Because the Wisconsin State Journal has now lost credibility with me, I sought other sources, including the bill text, before determining that the photo ID provisions of the bill would not be operative for the recalls.

-snip-

I'm guessing that even Wisconsin's power-mad Republicans realized they couldn't get away with having a photo-ID voting requirement that would take effect in less than two months.

But I'm also guessing that they're hoping to create enough confusion that many Democratic voters who don't have the necessary ID now won't realize they don't need it for the recall elections, and will stay away as a result.

As the FDL article notes, another part of the legislation WILL take effect before the recall elections. That's the change requiring that voters live at their current address for 28 days instead of 10 days, as previously required.

With the recall elections scheduled for July 12, that will disqualify all voters who have moved at the end of June. So it will impact renters and students -- more likely Democratic voters -- disproportionately.

Nothing can be done about that change, at this time.

But it's VERY important that Wisconsin Democrats get the word out to all registered Democrats in the state that the photo-ID requirement won't be in effect for the recall elections. Voters who are getting only piecemeal accounts of the news will otherwise be likely to forget about voting, if they can't get a new ID in time.

And groups that vote Democratic are of course the ones the photo-ID requirement is targeting.

From Rick Ungar at Forbes:

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/05/10/wisconsin-set-to-disenfranchise-likely-democratic-party-voters/

-snip-

Do you know who are the least likely to make the trek to the DMV and wait for hours in line to spend $28.00? Students.

-snip-

Most disturbing is the fact that for many of those who do not already have a driver�s license, which includes (per the 2005 study) 74% of the African-American community and 66% of the Hispanic community, the $28.00 charge is no small thing.

-snip-

Many counties in Wisconsin have only one DMV office, some of which are only open one day per week.

-snip-

UPDATE: Since posting, I�ve had some questions regarding the effect of the legislation on senior citizens. While there is an exception built into the draft that would exempt people living in nursing and retirement homes from compliance, other senior citizens would have to provide the identification as required. According to Sen. Bob Jauch (D), some 175,000 seniors do not have driver�s licenses and may have to �get a ride at least 50 miles round trip to obtain an identification card to enable them to continue their constitutional right to vote.�

This photo-ID legislation comes from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

A lot of what Ungar calls the "remarkably repressive" legislation introduced and passed in Wisconsin this year comes from ALEC.

But Ungar notes that the other bad legislation from ALEC "pales in importance when compared to this bald faced effort to take away voting rights" from groups likely to vote Democratic.