In 2011, Wisconsin passed one of the strictest Voter ID laws. It has been on hold during its federal trial in Milwaukee. It required a voter to show poll workers a government issued photo identification, like a driver's license or passport.
The law was challenged by the A.C.L.U., the League of United Latin American Citizens, the League of Young Voters, and several private citizens. They sued using under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act which survived the Supreme Court rulings, using the section that prohibits state and local governments from imposing any "voting qualifications or prerequisite to voting" that has a racially discriminatory effect.
The test is whether a law causes minority voters to have "less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process." The plaintiffs presented substantial evidence the the Wisconsin statute had precisely this effect.
A political scientist testified that it is likely that more than 65,000 residents of Milwaukee do not have the required photo ID and black residents are 40% more likely than whites not to have such ID. In addition, 1/3rd of those without photo ID do not have the required documents, like a birth certificate, needed to get one.
For those living in poverty or on a fixed income, who are disproportionally people of color, even the $20 charge to get a copy of a birth certificate can be unaffordable, and is in practice no different than a poll tax.
Republican legislators are scrambling to revise the statute to permit indigent voters to take a verbal oath and sign an affidavit that they can not afford the cost needed for the photo ID. But this would put residents in the embarrassing position of having to declare their poverty in public.
As the reader's of this blog knows, Photo ID laws that are suppose to stop voter fraud are actually another form of voter suppression.
The trial has concluded and we are now waiting for the verdict.
Whichever way the trial goes, the losing side is sure to appeal to the Seventh Circuit.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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