Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — The Republican Party's war on voters seeks to create a new qualification to vote in Wisconsin — a citizen's response to State Elections Commission mailings that query residency in light of an unreliable voter 'movers' report, (with a seven percent error rate), maintained by the non-profit Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).
The legal objective is to strike 100,000s of those the active voter rolls across mystery with the predictable consequence of inducing frustration, anger and confusion among mostly casual voters.
The ERIC list uses data from the Wisconsin Departments of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and other governmental data sources to generate a movers list, folks who may have moved, that is sent to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
The GOP legal effort is launched in a new lawsuit by the GOP's go-to guy in voter obstruction — the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty's (WILL) attorney Richard Esenberg, who has long labored to systematically disenfranchise black and brown citizens, [See also SourceWatch.)
For updates, see Timothy Zignego et al vs. Wisconsin Election Commission et al, Case No. 2019CV000449.
The scheme is an attempt to use existing law and plead novel readings that would obstruct voters for whom the GOP does not share affinity, and institute mass voter purgings from the voting rolls as tried in 2008 here. [See Van Hollen v. Government Accountability Board (2008). See also 2008 civil rights and public interest groups amicus brief.]
Esenberg filed a complaint on Nov 13, 2019 in Circuit Court in rightwing Ozaukee County in east-central Wisconsin in an attempt to ensure a favorable ruling from the Republican-aligned judges there.
The case is being heard by Judge Paul V. Malloy, first appointed by the Republican governor Scott McCallum in 2002.
Malloy and his wife have given over one dozen political contributions to Wisconsin Republicans, as noted in data maintained by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
Malloy will not disappoint his fellow Republicans, if allowed to preside.
The Esenberg-WILL election law case is Zignego, Opitz, Luehrs v. Wisconsin Election Commission.
Two of the three plaintiffs — Timothy Zignego, David W. Opitz — are Republican Party donors, as noted in data maintained by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
The three named plaintiffs live in Washington, Ozaukee and Waukesha counties, the three 'WOW' counties dominated by the Republican Party and white racists.
The complaint seeks a court order to force a regulatory mandate onto state election authorities to bring the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) into compliance with Wisconsin Statute § 6.50(3), under Esenberg's reading.
The complaint in part requests a court order declaring the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) shall make 100,000s of voters ineligible because voters did not respond within 30 days to an October 2019 WEC mailing telling voters they may have a new legal residence, but not advising voters they must repond or be stricken from the voting rolls, ([PROPOSED] INTERVENOR-DEFENDANT LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERSOF WISCONSIN’S MOTION TO DISMISS, (p 4)).
The desired bureaucratic action preemptively pronouncing voters' immediate ineligibility status because of residency confusion is not mandated under existing state law that gives the WEC authority to implement its regulatory processes and to create rules.
Reports Scott Bauer, (Associated Press):
The [lawsuit seeks] to force the deactivation of voters who did not respond within 30 days to an October mailing indicating that they may have moved.
The elections commission decided to wait longer than 30 days to deactivate voters because of problems in 2017 after about 343,000 voters were flagged as potential movers. More than 300,000 people who did not respond because they hadn’t moved were unable to vote, leading to confusion, anger and complaints.
The commission insists it has the authority to delay deactivating voters because another state law gives it the ability to create rules maintaining the voter registration list.
Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe issued comments in October regarding WILL's obstruction efforts. The comments read in part.
The racist Esenberg uses polemics to justify his case that are close to what the Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen used after filing a similar voter obstruction case in 2008, J.B. Van Hollen-Republican Party v. Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) et al.
The Commission is confident that it is complying with Wisconsin law.
The Legislature required Wisconsin to join the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) and to comply with the ERIC membership agreement.
The Legislature has not enacted any specific processes for the Commission or local election officials to deal with information about voters which the state receives from ERIC.
ERIC does not require its member states to deactivate voters based on information the states receive from ERIC.
When setting policies for dealing with the 2019 mailing to voters who may have moved, the Commission based its decisions on lessons learned from the 2017 movers mailing.
J.B. Van Hollen-Republican Party v. Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB)
In the 2008 case Van Hollen colluded with Republicans, and then at a partisan convention declared he would use a then-new federal law, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), to try to force a new qualification for Wisconsin voters: An exact data match among state bureaucracies as a prerequisite for citizens to cast votes.
Both Van Hollen and (now) Esenberg claimed they merely want to "follow" the law.
Van Hollen's case was dismissed in October 2008, (Mal Contends).
In Van Hollen's case, the Government Accountability Board (GAB), [now the Wisconsin Elections Board], noted in a Sept 8, 2008 press release that the Republican effort would have stopped more than a fifth of Wisconsin voters from casting ballots, including four of six Board members without further action or forced the casting of provisional ballots, (Mal Contends, Wayback Machine Archive).
Seven Percent Error Rate
In Zignego, Opitz, Luehr, Esenberg admits the ERIC scheme produced a seven percent error rate falsely indicating voters moved and established a new residency.
By Esenberg's reckoning seven percent disenfranchisement means the ERIC report is reliable.
Not so, say voting rights activists.
Notes the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin in a Nov 25, 2019 press release:
The first time Wisconsin used this flawed data to purge voter rolls was in the 2017-2018 election cycle. As a result, three cities, including Milwaukee, reversed the purge entirely because so many errors were present in the data. New letters were sent to 234,000 registered voters in October 2019, which accounts for 7% of Wisconsin’s 3.3 million registered voters. The League is represented by Jon Sherman and Cecilia Aguilera at Fair Elections Center and Doug Poland at Rathje Woodward LLC.
'Wisconsin law is clear; a registered voter can only be removed based on ‘reliable information’ of a residential address change,' said Jon Sherman, Senior Counsel at Fair Elections Center. 'A 7% error rate would be ludicrous and unacceptable in a calculator or a smoke detector; it cannot possibly be considered reliable when it comes to the most fundamental right in a democracy.'
Using the ERIC report with a seven percent error rate, Esenberg further argues the bad data demands immediate action, under Esemberg's reading of the law, ignoring that statutes do not indicate "specific processes for the Commission or local election officials to deal with information about voters which the state receives from ERIC," as the WEC notes.
Esenberg should follow his own advice.The elections commission "is free to ask the legislature to change the law," said Rick Esenberg, president of the group that's suing. "But until the law is changed, the commission must follow it."https://t.co/S8aj0LmdDG— WILL (@WILawLiberty) December 2, 2019
If Esenberg and Republicans want bad data matches to disqualify voters, per Esenberg and the Republican Party's scheme, they should ask the legislature to change the law to eliminate the WEC authority to enact rules and processes.
And while the Republicans are at it, they should work to change Article III of the Wisconsin Constitution that is a powerful affirmative statement of the personal right to vote enjoyed by Wisconsin citizens.
Judge Maryann Sumi wrote in 2008 dismissing the Republicans' laws suit: "There is no state law requirement that data in a voter list must match data kept by any other agency as a precondition to voting," (p 10).
There is a statute now that addresses agency matches and the residency qualification spelled out in the Wisconsin Constitution.
But Esenberg's scheme should fail in light of the vagueness of the statute he cites that does not specifically change how and by what processes the Wisconsin Elections Commission deals with bad, unreliable data pertaining to citizens' right to cast votes.
In the next several months, the case will likely be joined by a host of civil rights and public interest intervenors filing amicus briefs in support of voters and against the machinations of republicans who wish to frustrate and obstruct the franchise of 100,000s of Wisconsin voters.
