Bizarre Republican Polemics Defending Voter Obstruction

Even in the courtroom Republican defenders of voter obstruction substitute polemics for constitutional reasoning as Republicans refuse to close out project attacking voting rights

Republican defenders of voter obstruction often use virtually identical language to defend state laws that "disenfranchise voters likely to vote for the political party that does not control the state government," to borrow a phrase from Judge Richard Posner.

Posner's extraordinary 2104 On Suggestion of Rehearing En Banc is a veritable judicial white paper explaining Republican state efforts to suppress voters, (Posner, Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit), (Friedman, The Brad Blog), (Mal Contends).

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, the Republican Party's point man on Republican voter obstruction in his state, announced yesterday his office filed an appeal in the voting rights case, Ohio Organizing Collaborative v. Jon Hustad (Case No. 2:15-cv-1802), (Ohio Secretary of State).

Said Hustad, "To ensure we were fulfilling our goal of making it easy to vote and hard to cheat, we expanded weekend and weekday hours for in-person absentee voting as part of a compromise for the reduction in hours that came with the elimination of Golden Week," (Hustad, Ohio Secretary of State) (emphasis added). Hustad terms the Ohio Organizing Collaborative case the Ohio Democratic Party et al v. Husted, using Republican Party polemics contradicting the federal judge hearing the case on the title.

Easy to vote and hard to cheat.

This phrase may sound familiar to Wisconsin politicos. That's because the Republican Gov. Scott Walker often uses the phrase (or a derivation) when trying to defend voter obstruction in Wisconsin.

"In our state we have a photo ID requirement that would make it easy to vote and hard to cheat," Walker told reporters last year at Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst's Roast and Ride event, (CBS News, June 6, 2015) (emphasis added).

From Ohio to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and across the country, Republican voter obstruction operatives such as Hans von Spakovsky, and John Fund employ the phrase as a justification for voter obstruction laws such as Wisconsin's. Catchy phrase but vacuous as an argument.

Bizarre

In Wisconsin, the Republican case for voter obstruction as made at the bench trial of One Wisconsin Institute v. Nichol (U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324)) has veered into the vacuous and the bizarre.

Novack Doctrine

One witness for the Republicans, Waukesha County Clerk Kathleen Novack, testified at One Wisconsin, saying, "too much access to the voters as far as opportunities" to vote exist in Madison and Milwaukee, (Jake's Economic TA Funhouse), (Opoien, The Capital Times). This would be the Novack Doctrine, a guiding principle of Republican jurisprudence in voting rights law.

Schimel Doctrine

Republicans at the Wisconsin Dept. of Justice also kept up their line of reasoning that photo voter IDs are popular with citizens who possess the Ids, hence Wisconsin's restrictive law conditioning the right to vote on presenting Republican-approved photo voter IDs is both popular and Constitutional, (Mal Contends). This is the Schimel Doctrine, so named after Wisconsin's current Republican attorney general.

The Schimel Doctrine that voting restrictions' constitutionality is conditioned on polling numbers was ridiculed by a Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's three-judge panel in 2014.

"What conceivable relevance is a polling number to this litigation?," said Judge Frank Easterbrook, a voting rights opponent and author of the 2014 opinion upholding Wisconsin's photo voter ID law in Frank v. Walker.

Testimony has concluded in One Wisconsin. Closing arguments are scheduled for June 30.

One Wisconsin Institute

Below is a press release from the One Wisconsin Institute on the conclusion of testimony.

Testimony Concludes in Federal Voting Rights Trial Challenge to Republican-Led Attacks on Electoral Participation in Wisconsin

Intentions of Five Year Campaign to Undermine Voting Rights and Impacts of Voter Suppression Schemes on Legal Voters Exposed

MADISON, Wis. — Testimony concluded today in the federal voting rights trial, One Wisconsin Institute et. al. v. Gerald Nichol et. al., which challenges the state voter ID requirement, changes to voter registration requirements, limits on early voting and other restrictive changes to Wisconsin’s election laws adopted by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature.

Plaintiffs argued that the changes were meant to and have the effect of making it more difficult to vote in Wisconsin, especially for minorities, young people, and voters who tend to support Democratic candidates.

The following are the statements of One Wisconsin Institute Executive Director Scot Ross:

“The testimony and evidence provided to the court exposed the intentions behind the myriad of election law changes and revealed the impacts on voters of the five year assault on their rights perpetrated by Gov. Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature.

“Gov. Walker and Republican legislators set out to make it harder for minorities, young people and voters who tend to support Democratic candidates to participate in our elections. As a result, legal voters have been denied the franchise, and will continue to be denied their right to vote unless their suppression schemes are struck down.

“The real voting fraud in Wisconsin has been exposed, and it is these politicians manipulating the rules on voting to give themselves an unfair partisan advantage.

“Their actions have subverted our democracy and violate federal law.”
# # #
One Wisconsin Institute is a non-partisan, progressive research and education organization dedicated to a Wisconsin with equal economic opportunity for all.

Ohio Voter Suppression Law Held Unlawful, Opinion Points Way for Wisconsin Voting Rights

Black folks just love the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments
of the United States Constitution. But will they ever get that
Republican Party-enacted state laws against voting are really
for the greater good of the country?

Thursday, May 26, 2106 is the last day of trial in One Wisconsin v. Nichol, a major voting rights case challenging Republican voter suppression laws in Wisconsin.

Yesterday, a voting rights case in Ohio, signaled what could be a major development for voting rights federal litigation, in favor of the voters against Republican efforts to obstruct voters held in disfavor by Republicans state legislators and governors.

The Ohio case is Ohio Organizing Collaborative v. Jon Hustad (Case No. 2:15-cv-1802) heard by U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson who issued his 120-page opinion finding a voter suppression law blocking an in-person early voting ritual in Ohio, Golden Week, to be in violation of the United States Constitution and Voting Rights Act.

The Voting Right Act is a law first passed in 1965 to enforce the 15th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

The Ohio case is heard in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Writes Judge Watson:

EIP [early in-person] voting in homogenous black blocks was 4.316 times higher than homogenous white blocks in 2008… 4.4476 times higher in 2012… usage rates of Golden Week specifically were far higher among African Americans than among whites in both 2008 and 2012… In other words, in 2008, for example, ‘the rate of voting early in person during golden week is three and a half times greater in homogenous black blocks than homogenous white blocks.’

One Wisconsin v. Nichol 

In the Wisconsin voting rights case, a series of voter suppression laws enacted into law by Wisconsin Republicans since 2011 are challenged as violative of the Voting Rights Act and the United States Constitution.

Argue the plaintiffs, One Wisconsin Institute and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund, as noted at Election Law at Moritz:

Count I: Violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act
Count II: Undue Burdens on the Right to Vote in Violation of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
Count III: Disparate Treatment of Voters without a Rational Basis in Violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
Count IV: Partisan Fencing in Violation of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
Count V: Abridgment or Denial of the Right to Vote on the Basis of Race in Violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendment
Count VI: Abridgment or Denial of the Right to Vote on the Basis of Age in Violation of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment

Wisconsin Republicans

Wisconsin Republicans in the politicized Wisconsin Department of Justice argue, (among other points), that because Wisconsin's photo voter ID law for example is popular in their view, it is also constitutional, a bizarre argument used in two federal voting rights cases by Wisconsin DoJ Republicans, (Mal Contends).

Wisconsin Republicans also present protestations at trial by municipal clerks—representing white, Republican suburbs in Milwaukee's hyper-segregated greater urban area—who said  Republican-enacted election laws help the adminstration of elections. The clerks did not explain how or why.

Wisconsin Republicans also argue that the high voter turn-out in the April 5 Presidential Primary disconfirms the voting rights advocates' challenge of GOP-enacted election laws. DoJ Republicans suggest laws designed to suppress the vote of the non-Republican-voting electorate should be judged on their effect on total voter turn-out and not individual classes of voters such as Latinos, blacks, and college students, a talking point rather than a solid legal argument, (MediaMatters). Consider the hypothetical. If most voters were able to pay a $10 fee to vote, would the successful overcoming of the $10 burden mean that such a hypothetical law is not a violation of the 24th Amendment outlawing polling taxes?

The vast minorities of blacks in Wisconsin live in Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin, (Wisconsin Dept. of Heath Services), or as Paul Ryan and fellow Republicans like to point out: The "urban" areas.

In Wisconsin, urban means Milwaukee, Kenosha and Racine counties. Along with Dane County, these four counties comprise some one-third of Wisconsin's 2012 presidential election voting total.

The GOP stops enough 'urban' people voting, and they win.

Republican-enacted laws cut early voting from 30 days before Election Day to 12 days, cut the hours during which voters may cast early voting, (in-person, absentee voting), and restrict early voting to one location per municipality, in the name of uniformity. The city of Milwaukee with a population of 599,164 can only have one early voting location, just like the village of Lannon with a population of 1,092. Most blacks in Wisconsin are concentrated in Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin, and it's clear what Republicans aim to achieve: Voter suppression.

If U.S. District Judge James Peterson adopts the logic of Judge Watson, it is likely Peterson will find the Republican laws attacking early voting disproportionately affect minority voters, (2013 Wisconsin Act 146), for example.

The bench trial is scheduled to conclude on Thursday, May 26 and is being heard by U.S. District Judge James Peterson.

Wisconsin Voting Rights Trial: GOP's DoJ Is Back to Citing Polls as Constitutional Argument

Wisconsin Republican Party, DoJ Keep Citing Polling in Federal Litigation

At oral argument in the voting rights case, Frank et al v. Walker et al (No.: 14-2058), heard at the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in August 2014, Wisconsin DoJ Assistant Attorney General Clayton Kawski argued Wisconsin's restrictive photo voter ID is constitutional because results of a polling question on voter ID, (Marquette University Law School), showed more Wisconsin citizens favored voter ID than opposed it, (14-2058, Ruthelle Frank v. Scott Walker oral argument, civil,  09/12/2014) (2-minute, 34-second mark).

This argument on voting restrictions' constitutionality conditioned on polling numbers was ridiculed by the Seventh Circuit's three-judge panel.

"What conceivable relevance is a polling number to this litigation?," said Judge Frank Easterbrook, a voting rights opponent and author of the opinion upholding Wisconsin's photo voter ID law.

Seconds later after Judge John Tinder asked Clayton Kawski if popular laws can be unconstitutional, Kawski was forced to backtrack and admit the irrelevance of a polling figure to the constitutional questions.

One Wisconsin Institute v. Nichol 

The polling argument today is back at another Wisconsin voting rights trial, One Wisconsin Institute v. Nichol (U.S. District Court of the Western District of Wisconsin (Case 15-cv-324).

Notes Scott Ross, One Wisconsin Institute Executive Director on Facebook: 

So on day five of our vote trial, I have had my fav moment. The defense, [the Wisconsin DoJ], was asking our expert witness about her research on the absence of voter fraud in Wisconsin elections and noted 'polls show people support voter ID.' Our attorney came back with 'polls show some people believe our president is a Muslim,'

Polling figures as the basis for the constitutionality of laws designed to destroy the vote.

Now, that's a novel argument, but good enough for the Republican Party of Wisconsin and its adjunct operation in the Wisconsin Dept. of Justice.

Why is the Republican Party's DoJ advancing this discredited argument?