No-Voter ID Ruling Is Bodyshot to Scott Walker, Win for Wisconsin Voters

NO VOTER ID NEEDED to VOTE

Update II: Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen won't clarify statement asserting Wisconsin will "have voter ID on election day," (Hall, Wisconsin State Journal) mostly likely because the corrupt partisan is already bordering on the edge of a process for a contempt citation.

Update: Despite the six-to-three decision by the US Supreme Court blocking voter ID in Wisconsin, Wisconsin's corrupt attorney general, J.B. Van Hollen, says "We will be exploring alternatives to address the Court's concern and have voter ID on election day." (Bolin, WKOW) One wonders if Van Hollen actually read the Court's order reinstating the "permanent injunction" of Wisconsin's photo voter ID law.
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Constitutional scholars and voting rights attorneys contacted the last few weeks described the Sept. 12 order (and the supporting appellate opinions) reinstating (for 27 days it turns out) Wisconsin's photo voter ID law as disingenuous, unconscionable and unconstitutional.

The legal case against courts' changing election law close to (indeed after Wisconsin's election had begun) is a "no-brainer" (Hasen) and air-tight.

So why would Scott Walker and Wisconsin Attorney General go to extraordinary lengths to get a judicial imprimatur to implement the Voter ID law after our election had begun?

Because, as Scott Walker through Van Hollen's DoJ, conceded in the federal trial last year some 300,000 Wisconsin citizens lack the restrictive range of photo voter IDs needed to vote.

Enough of those 300,000 voters don't vote and Scott Walker wins reelection.

Walker and the Republicans likely will not pay a price for blocking registered voters from voting, unless the targeted voters follow the advice of a friend from Door county: Never give up.

Most people are not students of constitutional rights and winning constitutional rights from the majority has always been a struggle; Republicans are hostile to the civil rights movement, and this writer has seen the reaction of white citizens to the sight of a black man voting: Distaste and hostility.

Wisconsin election bureaucracies are too passive and timid to stand up and state the facts about the barriers imposed against voters, to advocate for voters.

Judge Frank Easterbrook of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has shown his true colors, and made up facts out of whole cloth in his deplorable work on behalf of the Republican Party in his hastily released opinion earlier this week.

A man of Easterbrook's gifts employs them for corrupt purposes, unforgivable.

Rick Hasen cautions this morning that Wisconsin should not be too excited that the Court "did the right thing now in the Wisconsin case. But don’t expect them to continue doing the right thing. The Chief [John Roberts] and Justice Kennedy will very likely be with today’s Wisconsin dissenters on the merits down the line."

There is no expectation that privileged elites will keep doing the right thing, and there never has been.
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For more reaction, here are comments from the ACLU and the Advancement Project, working for the many plaintiffs in Ruthelle Frank v. Scott Walker.

From Dale Ho, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project: "Today's order puts the brakes on the last-minute disruption and voter chaos created by this law going into effect so close to the election. It will help safeguard the vote for thousands of Wisconsinites as this case makes its way through the courts."

Advancement Project Senior Attorney and Director of Voter Protection, Katherine Culliton-González. - See more at: http://www.advancementproject.org/news/entry/wisconsin-voter-id-law-halted-as-supreme-court-blocks-appeals-court-order#sthash.Xq8O3DBV.dpuf

From Advancement Project Senior Attorney and Director of Voter Protection, Katherine Culliton-González: "While there is zero evidence of voter fraud, Wisconsin’s voter ID law would have risked disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of registered voters if it were allowed to take effect. The Supreme Court was absolutely correct in refusing to fast-track restricting access to the ballot in the upcoming election. Voting is the one time when we are all equal. Whether you’re young or old, rich or poor, Black, White, Latino, Asian or Native American – when we vote, we all have the same say. But this is not the end of the fight. We will keep working to ensure that this law is permanently enjoined, so that all voters can continue to have a voice in our democracy."

Advancement Project Senior Attorney and Director of Voter Protection, Katherine Culliton-González. - See more at: http://www.advancementproject.org/news/entry/wisconsin-voter-id-law-halted-as-supreme-court-blocks-appeals-court-order#sthash.Xq8O3DBV.dpuf

US Supreme Court Halts Wisconsin Voter ID Law

Ruthelle Frank of Brokaw, Wisconsin fights for
her right to vote against Scott Walker and
the Republican Party

In a victory of civil rights advocate, the US Supreme Court has ordered that Wisconsin's restrictive photo voter ID law is not to be enforced in the November election.

This means photo voter ID is not necessary for registered Wisconsin voters to cast votes.

The order is a defeat for Wisconsin Republicans who targeted the disabled, minorities, classes of the elderly and young voters who have trended heavily Democratic in their voting patterns.

These voters are more apt to not have the restrictive range of IDs Republicans crafted in their legislation, Act 23.

The case is Ruthelle Frank, et al., Applicants v. Scott Walker et al (No. 14A352).

Here is the opinion (from Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog); Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The state of Texas' restrictive Voter ID law was also struck down this evening by a U.S. District Court judge.

The Advancement Project celebrates voting rights victory.

Earlier today, attorney Katherine Culliton-González of the Advancement Project expressed confidence, saying, voting rights advocates have an "exceedingly strong case on the facts and the law" to vacate or nullify the stay by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The Opinions read:

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 14A352
RUTHELLE FRANK, ET AL .v. SCOTT WALKER ET AL.
ON APPLICATION TO VACATE STAY
[October 9, 2014]
The application to vacate the September 12, 2014 order of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is granted and the Seventh Circuit’s stay of the district court’s permanent injunction is vacated pending the timely filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari respecting case Nos. 14-2058 & 14-2059. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this order shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the order shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court
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JUSTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
There is a colorable basis for the Court’s decision due to the proximity of the upcoming general election. It is particularly troubling that absentee ballots have been sent out without any notation that proof of photo identification must be submitted. But this Court “may not vacate a stay entered by a court of appeals unless that court clearly and ‘demonstrably’ erred in its application of ‘accepted standards.’”
Planned Parenthood of Greater Tex. Surgical Health Servs. v. Abbott, 571 U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op.,at 1)
(SCALIA, J., concurring in denial of application to vacate stay) (quoting Western Airlines, Inc. v. Teamsters,480 U. S. 1301, 1305 (1987) (O’Connor, J., in chambers); some internal quotation marks omitted). Under that test, the application in this case should be denied.

US Supreme Court Ruling on Wisconsin Voter ID Expected Within Forty-eight Hours

Wisconsin voting rights advocates have an "exceedingly strong case on the facts and the law" to vacate or nullify the stay by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said Katherine Culliton-González this morning, freeing Wisconsin voters to cast their votes without presenting a restrictive range of voter IDs.

Culliton-González is co-counsel to the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) of Wisconsin, co-plaintiffs in the Wisconsin civil rights cases now before the US Supreme Court.

Culliton-González works for the Advancement Project as Senior Attorney and Director of Voter Protection.

An emergency petition (application) was filed with Justice Kagan, but sources close to the litigation said they expect the petition to be heard by the full Court.

If Kagan were to vacate the stay, then Republican Wisconsin Attorney General Van Hollen could and likely would then file another emergency petition (application) to another justice, under US Supreme Court rules.

Van Hollen and Scott Walker want the Wisconsin Voter ID law in effect on Election Day to disenfranchise as many minority and young voters as possible, increasing Scott Walker's chance for reelection

Culliton-González pointed to the many cases supporting voter rights advocates following the Pursell principle of federal courts never changing the rules of an election after an election has begun or close to an election, a principle that emphatically applies to Voter ID cases and in Wisconsin where the appellate panel ruled after the election had begun.

Check at Election Law Blog and Ruthelle Frank v. Scott Walker for updates.