The GOP Hates People with Whom They Disagree Casting Votes

Ruhelle Frank of Brokaw, Wisconsin fights for her right
to vote in federal court against Scott Walker.
Because of the state’s new voter ID law,
2012 will be the first year Frank can’t vote.

Days after the first election under Wisconsin's new voter ID law Tuesday, a federal complaint need not make a facial (on its face) challenge to Wisconsin's voter obstruction, stop-nonexistent-voter-impersonation-nonsense statute. See the Brennan Center's: "future (federal) challenges to voter laws must be filed with respect to the application of a specific law—after its controversial mandates are already applied in an election."

But it won't mater.

The Wisconsin ID law is so blatantly unconstitutional that I think even the corrupt 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court will have to enjoin the law as voting in Wisconsin is extremely well-protected under Wisconsin Constitutional law, and upholding the law would cause GOP justices to look even more foolish than they do now.

So, in both state and federal court, we are looking good.

• In other developments,
•  Brad Friedman chronicles some early reactions from users' point of view of the GOP voter obstruction system in practice.
• The Racine Journal Times reports: "69-year old veteran Gil Paar was shocked when poll workers told him his photo I.D. from the V.A. wasn’t on the accepted list."
•  Eric Kleefeld's Wisconsin Veteran Irate at Voter ID Law: ‘What The F*ck Did I Go in For?’ offers a nice wrap-up.
• And my A Voter ID Reality Overlooked provides background
• Worth a quick look from 2011: Wisconsin Official Instructs Staff Not To Mention Free IDs for Voting

I worked the polls Tuesday as an election inspector, and I had to reject an Army Reserve ID that did not include an expiration date.

- Before getting into revealing how foolish Republicans are on this issue, note that before you vote, you have to register to vote; see Wisconsin Voter Registration Application. To register to vote you need to establish who you are, and where you are (residency) with government and employee IDs, leases, utility bills, bank statements, etc; and if you have a driver’s license you need to register with your driver’s licence. In addition, you need to sign the voter reg. form stating that you are aware that falsification of any information is a Class 1 felony in Wisconsin. That’s before you can vote. … Then, you have to present a GOP-approved ID that Republicans say, is intended to stop rampant voter impersonation at the polls. Not one case of voter impersonation in Wisconsin has been prosecuted going back decades. -

One women left Tuesday before she voted because she felt the registration process was too intrusive, and it is. She had been purged from the voting rolls through a clerical error and so had to re-register.

A election inspector colleague, a Republican, said he didn't believe college and tech students, the elderly and black voters in Milwaukee were denied the right to vote.

I told him about a research report by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute showing that over 177,000 elderly persons in Wisconsin aged 65 and older do not possess a driver's license or state photo identification.

"No," he said. They must have IDs to receive "their Social Securty checks," he said triumphantly.

Tell that to 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper and 86-year-old Darwin Spinks (ThinkProgress).

Factually incorrect, but never use facts and logic in speaking to die-hard Republicans—it's not their thing. Should have ignored him.

Ruthelle Frank, 16 co-plaintiffs and the ACLU are filing suit in federal court to block the law saying it unconstitutionally burdens the rights of senior citizens, minorities, homeless veterans and others from voting. [See Frank v. Walker, 11cv1128, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Wisconsin (Milwaukee)]

Finally, another federal lawsuit against Wisconsin's new voter identification law by the Advancement Project was filed Thursday on behalf of several groups who say it discriminates against African-Americans and Latinos. ... three other lawsuits are all pending. The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP filed a lawsuit each in Dane County Circuit Court. The American Civil Liberties Union have also filed a federal lawsuit. AP

In closing, this question has not been anwsered: Why didn't Scott Walker get together in 2011 with the League of Women Voters, civil rights groups and other communites of interests and say: We're crafting a Voter ID bill, but we do not want legal voters to be stopped from voting. What can we do stop impersonation at the polls while ensuring the legal voter reflects the uncontroversial Wisconsin constituional doctrine:

"Every one having the constitutional qualifications then, may to go the polls, vested with this franchise, of which no statutory condition precedent can deprive him, because the [Wisconsin] constitution makes him, by force of his present qualifications, a qualified voter at such election."
- [Wis. Const, article III, section 1] Wood v. Baker, 38 Wis. 71: (August 1875)] Wisc. - Wisconsin Supreme Court